MATLAB: How to change the way MATLAB displays the significant digits of floating point numbers

digitdisplayformatMATLABsignificant

How can I change the way MATLAB displays the significant digits of floating point numbers?
I want to adjust how the significant digits of floating point numbers are displayed in the MATLAB Command Window.

Best Answer

The FORMAT function allows users to set the default display method for floating point numbers in MATLAB.
The options for format are:
       FORMAT                                Default. Same as SHORT.
       FORMAT SHORT                          Scaled fixed point format with 5 digits.
       FORMAT LONG                           Scaled fixed point format with 15 digits.
       FORMAT SHORT E                        Floating point format with 5 digits.
       FORMAT LONG E                         Floating point format with 15 digits.
       FORMAT SHORT G                        Best of fixed or floating point format with 5 digits.
       FORMAT LONG G                         Best of fixed or floating point format with 15 digits.
       FORMAT HEX                            Hexadecimal format.
       FORMAT +                              The symbols +, - and blank are printed for positive,
                                             negative and zero elements.  Imaginary parts are ignored.
       FORMAT BANK                           Fixed format for dollars and cents.
       FORMAT RAT                            Approximation by ratio of small integers.
     Spacing:
       FORMAT COMPACT                        Suppress extra line-feeds.
       FORMAT LOOSE                          Puts the extra line-feeds back in.
For more information you should see the FORMAT documentation, accessible from MATLAB with the following command:
doc format
Here is a quick example:
>> format short
>> pi
ans =
      3.1416
>> format long
>> pi
ans =
     3.14159265358979
Currently, it is not possible to specify your own precision in MATLAB. A suggested work-around to this issue would be to use the CEIL and FLOOR functions, in combination with multiplication by magnitudes of 10, to round off to a particular precision.
For example, if you have a variable x = 3.1416, to obtain only three significant digits, you should do the following:
format short
x=pi
xtemp=x*1000
xtempt=ceil(xtemp)
x=xtempt/1000
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