# Why does \[1:3\] .^ 3 not work?
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-does-1-3-3-not-work/70767
**Category:** New to Julia
**Tags:** question
**Created:** [November 2, 2021, 12:10am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-does-1-3-3-not-work/70767 "2021-11-02T00:10:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@sclel016](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sclel016)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2021, 12:10am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-does-1-3-3-not-work/70767/1 "2021-11-02T00:10:14Z")
Hi,
I’m a long time Matlab user trying to make the transition to Julia. It wasn’t obvious from reading the documentation whether the following behavior was a bug or just a characteristic of the language.
The following code throws an error, reporting no matching method in Julia 1.6.3
```julia
A = 1:10
B = A.^3
```
Is there a Julia-esque way to perform this operation or is this a bug?
---
### Author:  [@jzr](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jzr)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2021, 12:17am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-does-1-3-3-not-work/70767/2 "2021-11-02T00:17:51Z")
Works for me in 1.6.1. Can you show your full session?
```julia
julia> A = 1:10
1:10
julia> B = A.^3
10-element Vector{Int64}:
1
8
27
64
125
216
343
512
729
1000
```
---
### Author:  [@sclel016](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/sclel016)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2021, 12:24am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-does-1-3-3-not-work/70767/3 "2021-11-02T00:24:42Z")
Looks like my Matlab habits bit me. I’m used to `[1:10]` being equivalent to `1:10`.
Definitely not the case in Julia, the brackets create a `Vector{UnitRange{Int64}}`. Thanks for the sanity check!
---
### Author:  [@jling](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/jling)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2021, 1:05am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-does-1-3-3-not-work/70767/4 "2021-11-02T01:05:40Z")
> [@sclel016](#):
>
> I’m used to `[1:10]` being equivalent to `1:10`
in MATLAB, a scalar is a 1x1 matrix so there’s no scalar.
---
### Author:  [@rafael.guerra](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/rafael.guerra)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2021, 1:22am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-does-1-3-3-not-work/70767/5 "2021-11-02T01:22:35Z")
In Julia you could splat the range element of the vector to make it work:
```julia
julia> [1:3...].^3
3-element Vector{Int64}:
1
8
27
```
---
### Author:  [@simeonschaub](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/simeonschaub)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2021, 3:23am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-does-1-3-3-not-work/70767/6 "2021-11-02T03:23:12Z")
While that works, it will be very inefficient for large ranges. It’s usually more idiomatic to write this as `[1:3;].^3` instead.
---
### Author:  [@DNF](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/DNF)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2021, 5:23am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-does-1-3-3-not-work/70767/7 "2021-11-02T05:23:15Z")
> [@simeonschaub](#):
>
> It’s usually more idiomatic to write this as `[1:3;].^3`
But why? Why not just `(1:3).^3`?
---
### Author:  [@simeonschaub](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/simeonschaub)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2021, 1:50pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-does-1-3-3-not-work/70767/9 "2021-11-02T13:50:25Z")
Yeah, that might not have been a particularly good example. I just meant that if you really want to collect a range into a mutable vector for whatever reason that would be the preferable way to do it.