Variable number of input arguments:

For illustration, the below function areafori has a variable number of input arguments, either the 1 or 2. The name of the function stands for 'area, feet or inches.' When only one argument is passed to the function, it shows the radius in feet. When two arguments are passed, the second can be a character 'i' specifying that the result must be in inches (for any of other character, the default of feet is supposed). The function uses the built-in varargin that stores as a cell array of any number of input arguments. The nargin function returns a number of input arguments which were passed to the function. In this situation, the radius is the first argument passed; therefore it is stored in first element in the varargin. When a second argument is passed whenever nargin is 2, it is to identifyspecify the units.

Note that the curly braces are used to refer the elements in the cell array varargin.

Here are some illustrations of calling this function:

>> areafori(3)

ans =

  28.2743

>> areafori(1,'i')

ans =

  452.3893