Question

I have an 950000x1 array of values, for example [1e15 2.5e12 ...etc]. but when I do the following to get the average value, I get values as NaN.

avg=mean(g1)

I am not able to understand why I am getting this error.

Answer 1

The following code runs fine on my machine (Core i7, 16GB RAM, Linux Mint v12, Matlab 2012b):

T = 1e9;
Vec = ones(T, 1) * 1e200;
M = mean(Vec);

This suggests to me your array of values contains an NaN somewhere. Note, even if your array contained numbers larger than double floating point can handle (ie on the order of 1e320 or thereabouts), then the mean function will return Inf, not NaN.

Try any(isnan(Vec)) over your array. If it returns a 1, then you’ll know it contains an NaN. If it does, then the following code will remove the NaNs.

Vec(isnan(Vec)) = [];

If you think this has resolved your query, then feel free to click the tick mark next to my answer. Cheers!