We know that the trace of a matrix is defined as the sum of the leading diagonal elements.
Note : Trace is possible only for a square matrix.
# include<stdio.h> main( ) { int a[10][10], m,i,j, sum; printf ("\n Enter order of the square matrix :") ; scanf ("%d", &m); printf ("\n Enter the matrix \n"); for( i=0; i<m;i++) for ( j=0; j<m; j++) scanf ("%d", &a[i ][ j ]); /* loop to find trace of the matrix */ sum = 0; for ( i=0; i<m; i++) sum = sum + a[i ][ i ]; printf ("\n trace of the matrix = %d", sum); }
Output:
Trace of A matrix = A11+A22+A33=3+1+2=6
Row i and column j are equal for a diagonal element.
When this program is executed, the user has to enter the order m & values of the given matrix. A for loop is written to find the sum of the diagonal elements. The index variable of the loop i is used for row & column subscripts to represent the diagonal elements.