In MATLAB, why can't I compose transpose and colon operators? -

this question has answer here:

in matlab can vector of elements of matrix in column major order using (:) operator follows...

edu>>  =       1     2      3     4      5     6  edu>> a(:)  ans =       1      3      5      2      4      6

however, vector of elements in row major order. figured transpose matrix before using (:). error...

edu>> a'(:)  a'(:)   | error: unbalanced or unexpected parenthesis or bracket.

why won't ' , (:) compose here? can in 2 steps prefer more concise , avoid variable.

edu>> b = a'  b =       1     3     5      2     4     6  edu>> b(:)  ans =       1      2      3      4      5      6

why can't in 1 step composing ' , (:)? right way this?

thanks, ~chuck

using reshape perhaps

reshape(a',prod(size(a)),1)

Brande