How do I put variable values into a text string in MATLAB?

Question

I\'m trying to write a simple function that takes two inputs, x and y, and passes these to three other simple functions that add, multiply, and divide

Answer 1

I just realized why I was having so much trouble - in MATLAB you can't store strings of different lengths as an array using square brackets. Using square brackets concatenates strings of varying lengths into a single character array.

    >> a=['matlab','is','fun']

a =

matlabisfun

>> size(a)

ans =

     1    11

In a character array, each character in a string counts as one element, which explains why the size of a is 1X11.

To store strings of varying lengths as elements of an array, you need to use curly braces to save as a cell array. In cell arrays, each string is treated as a separate element, regardless of length.

>> a={'matlab','is','fun'}

a = 

    'matlab'    'is'    'fun'

>> size(a)

ans =

     1     3