MATLAB: How to replace every element of a matrix with a special character to hide the element

Question

I have a nxn matrix and want to hide the elements and replace them with a special character

Example

1 2 3
4 5 6
7 8 9

is now

* * *
* * *
* * *

Answer 1

   x = magic(3);
   y = repmat('*',size(x));
   disp(y);