You can use the Matrix function to create a matrix. And this function takes a list of lists as its argument, where each sub-list specifies a row. You can also use the square brackets operator to create a matrix. When you use this operator, you enter the values directly, without using lists. Instead, you separate the values in different rows with commas, and the values in different columns with spaces, tabs, or returns. And there are also a number of JSL functions that return matrices that your script could use. You can use subscripts to retrieve an element from a matrix in the same way that you retrieve items from a list. So to retrieve the element from the first row of the second column of a matrix stored in the variable x, you'd append the square brackets to the variable name, and enter one comma two in the brackets. To retrieve the element from the second row of the first column, you'd enter two comma one in the brackets. JMP has many functions that work on the entire matrix. For example, if you multiply a matrix by a scalar value, the result is that each element in the matrix is multiplied by that value. There's no need to loop through the elements of the matrix. This form of computing is called vectorizing the operation. Some benefits of using matrices in this way is that your script is shorter, more concise, easier to understand, and easier to maintain. And the run time for your script is shorter when you use vectorized operations. One last thing to note about matrices in JMP is that you can also use functions for linear algebra.
