when evaluating a symbolic function, i am receiving the answer in the form of a very large quotient. how can i force the answer to be a decimal? in matlab

You can convert a symbolic function to a floating-point number by using the 'double' function in MATLAB. Here's an example:

main.m
syms x
f = (x^2 + 3*x - 1)/(x + 2); % symbolic function
val = double(f); % convert to floating-point number
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In the above example, we first define a symbolic function 'f'. We then use the 'double' function to convert 'f' to a floating-point number and store the result in the variable 'val'.

Note that if the symbolic function contains any symbolic variables, you will need to provide values for them before calling the 'double' function. You can do this using the 'subs' function in MATLAB. Here's an example:

main.m
syms x y
f = sin(x*y);
f_sub = subs(f, [x y], [pi/4 1]); % substitute x=pi/4 and y=1
val = double(f_sub); % convert the result to a floating-point number
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In the above example, we define a symbolic function 'f' containing two variables 'x' and 'y'. We then use the 'subs' function to substitute specific values for 'x' and 'y'. We then convert the result to a floating-point number using the 'double' function and store it in the variable 'val'.