MATLAB: Sprintf to cell array

Question

How can I make sprintf output a cell array, with a nice vectorized notation?

When I have:

C = {'a','b'}
Output = sprintf('Letter:%s\n',C{:})

It becomes a char of length 18. Simple workaround would be a loop, maybe scan with a separator, or a solution with cellfun and anonymous function should work as well.

But is there not a nice straightforward vectorized solution to this? My first guess would have been something like:

   Output{:} = sprintf('Letter:%s\n',C{:})

Which does not work.

Thanx in advance Sven

Answer 1

Read this blog, it shows lots of ways of doing this, and also introduces the fastest method of all (which is undocumented, so use it at your own risk):

http://undocumentedmatlab.com/blog/sprintfc-undocumented-helper-function

EDIT some alternative for strings. Thinking outside the box and is very fast:

strrep(['Letter:%s',10],'%s',{'a','b'})

Much slower:

 strcat('Letter:',{'a','b'},char(10))
 cellfun(@(s)sprintf('Letter:%s\n',s),{'a','b'},'UniformOutput',false);