I am getting this error "Attempted to access a(2); index out of bounds because numel(a)=1. Error in generateShare (line 16) a2 = a(2);" after running the following code

function out = generateShare(a,b)

a1 = a(1);
a2 = a(2);
b1 = b(1);
b2 = b(2);

in = [a
      b];
out = zeros(size(in));
randNumber = floor(1.9*rand(1));

if (randNumber == 0)
    out = in;
elseif (randNumber == 1)
    a(1) = a2;
    a(2) = a1;
    b(1) = b2;
    b(2) = b1;
    out = [a
           b];   
end

Answer 1

[Geoff Hayes]

juhi - the error message is telling you that you are trying to access an element of the array a using an index that is invalid. In this case, your a is a 1x1 (scalar) and your code is trying to get the second element of it via a(2) which will not work since a is a scalar and not an array.

When you call the function generateShare, it is expected that the two inputs, a and b, are 2x1 (or 1x2) arrays and not scalars and so you must pass them in as such. For example,

 generateShare([1 2], [3 4])

should work.