polyfit vs. fit

It seems to me that there are 2 methods to programmatically (as opposed interactively using the curve fitting toobox) fit a 5th order polynomial to a set of data:

the first is to use 'polyfit':

p = polyfit(x, y, 5)

alternatively, it is possible to use 'fit':

p_fitobject = fit(x, y, 'poly5')

Why would I use one over the other?

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

Those of us without the Curve Fitting Toolbox (like me) would of course have to use polyfit. (With the Statistics Toolbox and Optimization Toolbox, I can do all the other curve-fitting I need to do.) The one advantage I see to polyfit is that as I understand it, fit by default scales and centres the variables, whereas in polyfit that’s an option.