ABS Absolute value and string to numeric conversion. ABS(X) is the absolute value of the elements of X. When X is complex, ABS(X) is the complex modulus (magnitude) of the elements of X. See also ANGLE, UNWRAP. ABS(S), where S is a MATLAB string variable, returns the numeric values of the ASCII characters in the string. It does not change the internal representation, only the way it prints. See also SETSTR.