Derivative of legendreP function

Hello. I am wondering how could one differentiate the legendre polynomial, e.g. like legendreP(5,x) can be expressed as (63*x^5)/8 - (35*x^3)/4 + (15*x)/8 and how to let matlab automatically give value of the derivative of it numerically. Is there a function that deals with this type of differentiation?

Thanks a lot

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

The best way to compute the derivative of a vector (that I assume you are computing) is to use the gradient (link) function. The advantage is that it produces a result vector the same length as the argument vector. See the documentation for the details of the computations it uses and its other abilities.