Editing Scilab (section)

==Introduction==

Scilab is a high-level, numerically oriented programming language. The language provides an [[interpreted language|interpreted]] programming environment, with [[matrix (mathematics)|matrices]] as the main [[data type]]. By using matrix-based computation, [[dynamic typing]], and [[Garbage collection (computer science)|automatic memory management]], many numerical problems may be expressed in a reduced number of code lines, as compared to similar solutions using traditional languages, such as [[Fortran]], [[C (programming language)|C]], or [[C++]]. This allows users to rapidly construct [[computer simulation|models]] for a range of mathematical problems. While the language provides simple matrix operations such as multiplication, the Scilab package also provides a library of high-level operations such as [[correlation]] and complex multidimensional arithmetic.

Scilab also includes a free package called [[Xcos]] for modeling and simulation of explicit and implicit dynamical systems, including both continuous and discrete sub-systems. Xcos is the open source equivalent to [[Simulink]] from [[the MathWorks]].

As the [[syntax]] of Scilab is similar to MATLAB, Scilab includes a source code translator for assisting the conversion of code from MATLAB to Scilab. Scilab is available free of cost under an [[open source license]]. Due to the open source nature of the software, some user contributions have been integrated into the main program.