matlab: converting a vector to a cell array of strings

Question

I'm sure there's a way to do this but I don't know what it is.

Suppose I have a vector

v = [1.02 2.03 3.04];

and I want to convert this to a cell array using a format string for each element:

'   %.3f'

(3 spaces before the %.3f)

How can I do this? I tried the following approach, but I get an error:

>> f1 = @(x) sprintf('   %.3f',x);
>> cellfun(f1, num2cell(v))
??? Error using ==> cellfun
Non-scalar in Uniform output, at index 1, output 1.
Set 'UniformOutput' to false.

Doh! I wish the error messages were a little more clear. Something like You may wish to use cellfun(..., 'UniformOutput', false) — Jason S
– Jason S, Commented May 30, 2012 at 14:18
By the way, definitely you are familiar but I learned recently that sprintf works in arrays: i.e. you can use sprintf(' %.3f',v) to print all elements. Maybe, you are creating the cells for sth like this? — petrichor
– petrichor, Commented May 30, 2012 at 14:20
That was another possibility (convert to a 2-D string, then to cell array) but has the disadvantage that it pads the rows of the string with spaces. — Jason S
– Jason S, Commented May 30, 2012 at 14:25

petrichor · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-30 14:16:06Z

6

As stated in the error, just provide the parameter of UniformOutput as false

cellfun(f1, num2cell(v), 'UniformOutput', false)

ans = 

    '   1.020'    '   2.030'    '   3.040'

answered May 30, 2012 at 14:16

petrichor

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1 Comment

Andrey Rubshtein Over a year ago

Or use the {} syntax - cellfun(@(x){f1(x)}, num2cell(v))

Amro · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-30 15:03:04Z

2

Here is another solution:

>> v = [1.02 2.03 3.04];
>> strcat({'   '}, num2str(v(:),'%.3f'))
ans = 
    '   1.020'
    '   2.030'
    '   3.040'

Obviously you can transpose the result if you want a row vector.

answered May 30, 2012 at 15:03

Amro

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Comments

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 11:44:17Z

1

You can also use the {} syntax:

 cellfun(@(x){f1(x)}, num2cell(v))

Also check out : Applying a function on array that returns outputs with different size in a vectorized manner

edited May 23, 2017 at 11:44

CommunityBot

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answered May 30, 2012 at 21:00

Andrey Rubshtein

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