Problem 45818. Extract leading non-zero digit (★★★★★)

Anirban Pal

33 solvers

1 likes

Solve

Solve Later

(Copy of Problem 47)
Benford's Law states that the distribution of leading digits is not random. This is probably because many things grow logarithmically. Extract the leading digit from these vectors.
    10 --> 1
    13 --> 1
    0.3 --> 3
    -4 --> 4
    -5 --> 5
    -0.006 --> 6
Input will be a vector
 x = [1 0.3 -2 0.001 -0.0006, 582398, 3020];
Output should be
 y = [1 3 2 1 6 5 3];
Avoid using for/while loops.

Solve

Solution Stats

99 Solutions

Last Solution submitted on Jul 21, 2026

Last 200 Solutions

Problem Comments

Solution Comments

Show comments

Problem Recent Solvers33

Suggested Problems

Convert a numerical matrix into a cell array of strings

2555 Solvers
Add two numbers

1510 Solvers
Generate a random matrix A of (1,-1)

434 Solvers
Vector of numbers divisible by 3

154 Solvers
Fix the last element of a cell array

1874 Solvers

More from this Author52

Create a vector of n alternating ones and zeros (★★)

117 Solvers
Select every other element of a vector (★★)

113 Solvers
Matrix convolution

32 Solvers
Create logarithmically spaced values (★)

118 Solvers
Mo money, mo math 1! (★★★)

82 Solvers

Problem Tags

Community Treasure Hunt

Find the treasures in MATLAB Central and discover how the community can help you!

Start Hunting!