Max function and brackets in Matlab

Question

Why is it that the code:

[a,b] = max([1,2,3;4,5,6;7,8,9])

produces a =

 7     8     9

b =

 3     3     3

Should a be the max number in each of the rows so 5,6,9 and b be the max number in each of the columns so 7,8,9?

Answer 1

7, 8, 9 are the max in each column of your matrix, and 3, 3, 3 are the positions of that max number.

Vector 'a' stores the max numbers, and vector 'b' stores the indexes in each vector.

I suggest reading matlab doc for more details if you want to get the max for each row.