format of output in command window

I am getting output of simple math equations
36.0801*1.1462-181.04*(-.13341-.05423*K))/36.0801
(53973921897849552896*K)/198352447406604296875 + 720263206506893453689/396704894813208593750.
i am not getting the decimal form!
i need the answer in decimal form so as to perform more calculations

 Accepted Answer

You can use
syms K
A = (36.0801*1.1462-181.04*(-.13341-.05423*K))/36.0801;
d = 5; % decimal accuracy;
vpa(A,d)

3 Comments

Correct.
However, the result is still going to be in terms of the symbolic variable K, and so is going to have to be a symbolic expression; it cannot be converted into double. There is no circumstance you are likely to run into under which a symbolic expression in floating point representation can be any more useful for further calculation than the same symbolic expression in rational form.
If the K was not there, then there might be reason to use double(A) instead of vpa(A), as there are cases where you need a double for calculation where a symbolic constant in rational form will not work. But this is not one of the cases, so the poster might as well leave the result unconverted until the poster has a numeric K value to substitute in.
If you want to evaluate the expression you can use
syms K
A = (36.0801*1.1462-181.04*(-.13341-.05423*K))/36.0801;
subs(A, K, 1) % K = 1;
thank you I found out that. Vpa has to be used wen using symbolic var thanks very much

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on 1 Jun 2016

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on 2 Jun 2016

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