Statistics Toolbox

median

Median value of vectors and matrices

Syntax

• m = median(X)
  

Description

m = median(X) calculates the median value, which is the 50th percentile of a sample. The median is a robust estimate of the center of a sample of data, since outliers have little effect on it.

For vectors, median(x) is the median value of the elements in vector x. For matrices, median(X) is a row vector containing the median value of each column. Since median is implemented using sort, it can be costly for large matrices.

The median function is part of the standard MATLAB language.

Examples

• xodd = 1:5;
  modd = median(xodd)
  modd =
       3
  meven = median(xeven)
  meven =
      2.5000
  

This example shows robustness of the median to outliers.

• xoutlier = [x 10000];
  moutlier = median(xoutlier)
  moutlier = 
       3
  

See Also
mean, std, cov, corrcoef

mean

mle