Sum of integers up to n using a while loop

Hi, I've recently started coding as part of my uni maths course, however I am struggling very much with the learning curve.

I want to know how to sum all the positive numbers up to and including n by using a while loop.

From what I have gathered already I would use in the case of n = 10

s = 0
n = 10 
while s < ((n + 1) * n / 2)
    N = N + 1
    s = s + N
end
disp(s)

What could I do to make this work? Any help would be greatly appreciated,

[Matt J]

Are we supposed to see why it doesn't work now?

Answer 1

[JESUS DAVID ARIZA ROYETH]

try it yourself with a for (see documentation)

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/for.html

You can be guided by this example:

s = 0;
k=1;
n = 10 ;
while k <= n
    s=s+k;
    k=k+1;
end
disp(s)

In the end, the idea is that with practice you can do all this code in a line like this:

n=10
s=sum(1:n)

[Will Murphy]

Thank you, I understand everything you've written except for line 4, I'm assuming that that is simply assigning k to the value of n. If so, can I use same notation in the future for a different task in the future except with a function of n written i.e. k <= n * 3 + 1 in some very random case. My current university course isn't very forgiving in giving specific help to less experienced coders so your assistance is greatly appreciated.

[Turlough Hughes]

Line 4 is

while k <= n

k <= n is checking if the current value of k is less than or equal to n. If k is less than or equal to n then the condition is true and another iteration of the loop is implemented, if it is false, the loop is terminated.

Every time the loop is iterated, the value of k increases by 1 due to line 6

    k = k+1;

It might help you to see the values as the loop progresses by running the following code:

s = 0;
k = 1;
n = 10 ;
while k <= n
    fprintf('Iteration Number: %d\n\nValues at start of iteration \nk = %d \ns = %d\n',k,k,s)
    s=s+k;
    k=k+1;
    fprintf('Values at end of iteration \nk = %d \ns = %d\n\n\n',k,s)
end

[Will Murphy]

Ah okay, I had misinterpreted the symbols. All cleared up now, thanks for the help.