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Some MATLAB Cody problems prohibit loops (for, while) or conditionals (if, switch, while), forcing creative solutions.
One elegant trick is to use nested functions and recursion to achieve the same logic — while staying within the rules.
Example: Recursive Summation Without Loops or Conditionals
Suppose loops and conditionals are banned, but you need to compute the sum of numbers from 1 to n. This is a simple example and obvisously n*(n+1)/2 would be preferred.
function s = sumRecursive(n)
zero=@(x)0;
s = helper(n); % call nested recursive function
function out = helper(k)
L={zero,@helper};
out = k+L{(k>0)+1}(k-1);
end
end
sumRecursive(10)
- The helper function calls itself until the base case is reached.
- Logical indexing into a cell array (k>0) act as an 'if' replacement.
- MATLAB allows nested functions to share variables and functions (zero), so you can keep state across calls.
Tips:
- Replace 'if' with logical indexing into a cell array.
- Replace for/while with recursion.
- Nested functions are local and can access outer variables, avoiding global state.
Many MATLAB Cody problems involve recognizing integer sequences.
If a sequence looks familiar but you can’t quite place it, the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS) can be your best friend.
OEIS will often identify the sequence, provide a formula, recurrence relation, or even direct MATLAB-compatible pseudocode.
Example: Recognizing a Cody Sequence
Suppose you encounter this sequence in a Cody problem:
1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, ...
Entering it on OEIS yields A000045 – The Fibonacci Numbers, defined by:
F(n) = F(n-1) + F(n-2), with F(1)=1, F(2)=1
You can then directly implement it in MATLAB:
function F = fibSeq(n)
F = zeros(1,n);
F(1:2) = 1;
for k = 3:n
F(k) = F(k-1) + F(k-2);
end
end
fibSeq(15)
When solving MATLAB Cody problems involving very large integers (e.g., factorials, Fibonacci numbers, or modular arithmetic), you might exceed MATLAB’s built-in numeric limits.
To overcome this, you can use Java’s java.math.BigInteger directly within MATLAB — it’s fast, exact, and often accepted by Cody if you convert the final result to a numeric or string form.
Below is an example of using it to find large factorials.
function s = bigFactorial(n)
import java.math.BigInteger
f = BigInteger('1');
for k = 2:n
f = f.multiply(BigInteger(num2str(k)));
end
s = char(f.toString); % Return as string to avoid overflow
end
bigFactorial(100)
If you have solved a Cody problem before, you have likely seen the Scratch Pad text field below the Solution text field. It provides a quick way to get feedback on your solution before submitting it. Since submitting a solution takes you to a new page, any time a wrong solution is submitted, you have to navigate back to the problem page to try it again.
Instead, I use the Scratch Pad to test my solution repeatedly before submitting. That way, I get to a working solution faster without having to potentially go back and forth many times between the problem page and the wrong-solution page.
Here is my approach:
- Write a tentative solution.
- Copy a test case from the test suite into the Scratch Pad.
- Click the Run Function button—this is immediately below the Scratch Pad and above the Output panel and Submit buttons.
- If the solution does not work, modify the solution code, sometimes putting in disp() lines and/or removing semicolons to trace what the code is doing. Repeat until the solution passes.
- If the solution does work, repeat steps 2 through 4.
- Once there are no more test cases to copy and paste, clean up the code, if necessary (delete disp lines, reinstate all semicolons to suppress output). Click the Run Function button once more, just to make sure I did not break the solution while cleaning it up. Then, click the Submit button.
For problems with large test suites, you may find it useful to copy and paste in multiple test cases per iteration.
Hopefully you find this useful.
Jorge Bernal-AlvizJorge Bernal-Alviz shared the following code that requires R2025a or later:
Test()
function Test()
duration = 10;
numFrames = 800;
frameInterval = duration / numFrames;
w = 400;
t = 0;
i_vals = 1:10000;
x_vals = i_vals;
y_vals = i_vals / 235;
r = linspace(0, 1, 300)';
g = linspace(0, 0.1, 300)';
b = linspace(1, 0, 300)';
r = r * 0.8 + 0.1;
g = g * 0.6 + 0.1;
b = b * 0.9 + 0.1;
customColormap = [r, g, b];
figure('Position', [100, 100, w, w], 'Color', [0, 0, 0]);
axis equal;
axis off;
xlim([0, w]);
ylim([0, w]);
hold on;
colormap default;
colormap(customColormap);
plothandle = scatter([], [], 1, 'filled', 'MarkerFaceAlpha', 0.12);
for i = 1:numFrames
t = t + pi/240;
k = (4 + 3 * sin(y_vals * 2 - t)) .* cos(x_vals / 29);
e = y_vals / 8 - 13;
d = sqrt(k.^2 + e.^2);
c = d - t;
q = 3 * sin(2 * k) + 0.3 ./ (k + 1e-10) + ...
sin(y_vals / 25) .* k .* (9 + 4 * sin(9 * e - 3 * d + 2 * t));
points_x = q + 30 * cos(c) + 200;
points_y = q .* sin(c) + 39 * d - 220;
points_y = w - points_y;
CData = (1 + sin(0.1 * (d - t))) / 3;
CData = max(0, min(1, CData));
set(plothandle, 'XData', points_x, 'YData', points_y, 'CData', CData);
brightness = 0.5 + 0.3 * sin(t * 0.2);
set(plothandle, 'MarkerFaceAlpha', brightness);
drawnow;
pause(frameInterval);
end
end
Hey Relentless Coders! 😎
Let’s get to know each other. Drop a quick intro below and meet your teammates! This is your chance to meet teammates, find coding buddies, and build connections that make the contest more fun and rewarding!
You can share:
- Your name or nickname
- Where you’re from
- Your favorite coding topic or language
- What you’re most excited about in the contest
Let’s make Team Relentless Coders an awesome community—jump in and say hi! 🚀
Hey Creative Coders! 😎
Let’s get to know each other. Drop a quick intro below and meet your teammates! This is your chance to meet teammates, find coding buddies, and build connections that make the contest more fun and rewarding!
You can share:
- Your name or nickname
- Where you’re from
- Your favorite coding topic or language
- What you’re most excited about in the contest
Let’s make Team Creative Coders an awesome community—jump in and say hi! 🚀
Welcome to the Cody Contest 2025 and the Relentless Coders team channel! 🎉
You never give up. When a problem gets tough, you dig in deeper. This is your space to connect with like-minded coders, share insights, and help your team win. To make sure everyone has a great experience, please keep these tips in mind:
- Follow the Community Guidelines: Take a moment to review our community standards. Posts that don’t follow these guidelines may be flagged by moderators or community members.
- Ask Questions About Cody Problems: When asking for help, show your work! Include your code, error messages, and any details needed to reproduce your results. This helps others provide useful, targeted answers.
- Share Tips & Tricks: Knowledge sharing is key to success. When posting tips or solutions, explain how and why your approach works so others can learn your problem-solving methods.
- Provide Feedback: We value your feedback! Use this channel to report issues or share creative ideas to make the contest even better.
Have fun and enjoy the challenge! We hope you’ll learn new MATLAB skills, make great connections, and win amazing prizes! 🚀
Welcome to the Cody Contest 2025 and the Creative Coders team channel! 🎉
You think outside the box. Where others see limitations, you see opportunities for innovation. This is your space to connect with like-minded coders, share insights, and help your team win. To make sure everyone has a great experience, please keep these tips in mind:
- Follow the Community Guidelines: Take a moment to review our community standards. Posts that don’t follow these guidelines may be flagged by moderators or community members.
- Ask Questions About Cody Problems: When asking for help, show your work! Include your code, error messages, and any details needed to reproduce your results. This helps others provide useful, targeted answers.
- Share Tips & Tricks: Knowledge sharing is key to success. When posting tips or solutions, explain how and why your approach works so others can learn your problem-solving methods.
- Provide Feedback: We value your feedback! Use this channel to report issues or share creative ideas to make the contest even better.
Have fun and enjoy the challenge! We hope you’ll learn new MATLAB skills, make great connections, and win amazing prizes! 🚀
The all-community-solutions view shows the ID of each solution, and you can click on the link to go to the solution.
The preferred-community-solutions view does not show the solution IDs and does not link to the solutions. As far as I can tell, there is no way to get from that view to the solutions. If, for example, you want to go to the solution to leave a comment there, you can't.
All-community-solutions view:
Preferred-community-solutions view, with no solution IDs and no links:
Hi cody fellows,
I already solved more than 500 problems -months ago, last july if I remember well- and get this scholar badge, but then it suddenly disappeared a few weeks later. I then solved a few more problems and it reappeared.
Now I observed it disappeared once more a few days ago.
Have you also noticed this erratic behavior of the scholar badge ? Is it normal and / or intentional ? If not, how to explain it ? (deleted problems ?)
Cheers,
Nicolas
I'm seeing solution maps shown with low-contrast gray colors instead of the correct symbol colors. I have observed this using both Safari and Chrome. Screenshot:
Here is a screenshot of a Cody problem that I just created. The math rendering is poor. (I have since edited the problem to remove the math formatting.)
Are there any code restrictions for programming Cody solutions? I could not find anything mentioned at https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/content/cody/about.html, other than toolbox functions not being available.
Inspired by @xingxingcui's post about old MATLAB versions and @유장's post about an old Easter egg, I thought it might be fun to share some MATLAB-Old-Timer Stories™.
Back in the early 90s, MATLAB had been ported to MacOS, but there were some interesting wrinkles. One that kept me earning my money as a computer lab tutor was that MATLAB required file names to follow Windows standards - no spaces or other special characters. But on a Mac, nothing stopped you from naming your script "hello world - 123.m". The problem came when you tried to run it. MATLAB was essentially doing an eval on the script name, assuming the file name would follow Windows (and MATLAB) naming rules.
So now imagine a lab full of students taking a university course. As is common in many universities, the course was given a numeric code. For whatever historical reason, my school at that time was also using numeric codes for the departments. Despite being told the rules for naming scripts, many students would default to something like "26.165 - 1.1" for problem one on HW1 for the intro applied math course 26.165.
No matter what they did in their script, when they ran it, MATLAB would just say "ans = 25.0650".
Nothing brings you more MATLAB-god credibility as a student tutor than walking over to someone's computer, taking one look at their output, saying "rename your file", and walking away like a boss.
It was 2010 when I was a sophomore in university. I chose to learn MATLAB because of a mathematical modeling competition, and the university provided MATLAB 7.0, a very classic release. To get started, I borrowed many MATLAB books from the library and began by learning simple numerical calculations, plotting, and solving equations. Gradually I was drawn in by MATLAB’s powerful capabilities and became interested; I often used it as a big calculator for fun. That version didn’t have MATLAB Live Script; instead it used MATLAB Notebook (M-Book), which allowed MATLAB functions to be used directly within Microsoft Word, and it also had the Symbolic Math Toolbox’s MuPAD interactive environment. These were later gradually replaced by Live Scripts introduced in R2016a. There are many similar examples...
Out of curiosity, I still have screenshots on my computer showing MATLAB 7.0 running compatibly. I’d love to hear your thoughts?
Do you have a swag signed by Brian Douglas? He does!
For some time now, this has been bugging me - so I thought to gather some more feedback/information/opinions on this.
What would you classify Recursion? As a loop or as a vectorized section of code?
For context, this query occured to me while creating Cody problems involving strict (so to speak) vectorization - (Everyone is more than welcome to check my recent Cody questions).
To make problems interesting and/or difficult, I (and other posters) ban functions and functionalities - such as for loops, while loops, if-else statements, arrayfun() and the rest of the fun() family functions. However, some of the solutions including the reference solution I came up with for my latest problem, contained recursion.
I am rather divided on how to categorize it. What do you think?
I came across this fun video from @Christoper Lum, and I have to admit—his MathWorks swag collection is pretty impressive! He’s got pieces I even don’t have.
So now I’m curious… what MathWorks swag do you have hiding in your office or closet?
- Which one is your favorite?
- Which ones do you want to add to your collection?
Show off your swag and share it with the community! 🚀
