The Format Function and ellipsis:

The default in MATLAB is to show numbers which have decimal places with four decimal places. The format command can be used to identify the output format of expressions. There are many options, involving making the format short (by default) or long. For illustration, changing the format to long will results in 15 decimal places. This will remain unaffected until the format is changed back to short, as elaborated with an expression and with the built-in value for pi.

>> format long

>> 2 * sin(1.4)

ans =

1.970899459976920

>> pi

ans =

3.141592653589793

>> format short

>> 2 * sin(1.4)

ans =

1.9709

>> pi

ans =

3.1416