MATLAB: Why is a blank ignored in strcat

MATLABstrcat blank

as an example, the following code:

strcat(num2str(1,'%02.0f'), '-', num2str(2), ' ', num2str(3), ':', num2str(4,'% 2.0f'))

produces:

01-23:4

whereas I want:

01-2 3: 4

Seems pretty simple but … would someone help please?

Best Answer

'% 2.0f' adds a leading space on demand only, so you want: ' %2.0f'.

But this would be nicer, faster and less confusing:

sprintf('%02.0f-%d %d: % 2.0f', 1, 2, 3, 4)

To get around this ugly space gimmicks, which come from the backward compatibility to times before cell strings have been invented, I'm using a dedicated function to join strings: FEX: CStrCatStr. But this is designed for cell strings and for strings horzcat works sufficiently without deleting spaces smartly.

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MATLAB: Function file that removes a character in a string

This replaces the hyphen with a space.

You can use the loop if you want. You simply have to tweak it:

n = length(str);
for k = 1:n
    if strfind(str(k),'-')
        str(k) = ' ';
    end
    strOut = str;
end

A simpler implementation eliminates the loop entirely:

The loop is the problem. Just use strfind:

k = strfind(str,'-')
str(k) = ' ';

There are other functions that will do this more effieicntly (that I will let you search out).

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The built-in function strcmp can compare a character array to a cell array of strings. Matching cells may be removed by setting them equal to the empty array.

 strs(strcmp('',strs)) = [];

Best Answer

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