Data Display and Output Commands in MATLAB

disp( )

'disp' is the basic command used to display value of a variable or a string. It can display value of only one variable or a string at a time. It can’t display multiple values in single command.

Syntax

disp(A)

disp(A) displays the value of variable A without printing the variable name. The argument can be a string, a numeric or an expression. If the variable contains an empty array, returns without displaying anything.

Examples

>> A = [1 2 3 4 5];

>> disp (A)

     1     2     3     4     5

>> disp([1 2 3 4 5])

     1     2     3     4     5

>> S = 'Electrical';

>> disp(S)

Electrical

>> disp('Electrical')

Electrical

>> disp(A.*2)

     2     4     6     8    10

If the data is mixed with numeric and text, you have to use multiple disp commands.

>> disp('Today is April'), disp(1)

Today is April

     1

Here the text and the number are displayed in different lines. They can be printed in the same line with following code

>> m = ['Today is April ', num2str(1)];

>> disp(m)

Today is April 1

Tips: Display Hyperlink in Command Window

Display a link to a Web page by including HTML hyperlink code as input to disp. For example, display a link to my blog site.

>> X = '<a href = "http://electricalenggtutorial.blogspot.com"> Electrical Engineering Tutorial</a>';

>> disp(X)

Electrical Engineering Tutorial

fprintf( )

'fprintf' is used to formats data and displays the results on the screen and to write the data in to a text file. It can mix numbers and text in output and have full control of output display formats.

Syntax

fprintf(‘text’) will display the text in the command window without any formatting. This is the simple form of the function. 

fprintf(format, A, ...) formats data stored in the variable A and displays the results on the screen.

fprintf(FID, format, A, ...) applies the format to all elements of array A and any additional array arguments in column order, and writes the data to a text file.  FID is an integer file identifier.

Examples

>>fprintf('Matlab Programing Tips')

Matlab Programing Tips>>

Note that the next prompt is coming in the same line. This can be solved by inserting \n after the text.

>> fprintf('Matlab Programing Tips\n')

Matlab Programing Tips

>>

\n can be used to display the text in multiple lines. This is done by inserting \n before the character that will start the new line. For example, insert \n after each word in the previous example.

>> fprintf('Matlab\n Programing\n Tips\n')

Matlab

Programing

Tips

When a program has more than one fprintf command, the display generated is continuous (the fprintf command does not automatically start a new line). The following lines are from a script file.

>> fprintf('Matlab Programing Tips')

>> fprintf('are very useful\n')

the program will give an output in the command window as:

Matlab Programing Tipsare very useful

Formatting Operator

To display data in a variable, the formatting operators are used. A formatting operator starts with a percentage sign, %, and ends with a conversion character. The table shows conversion characters to format numeric and character data as text.

Value Type	Conversion	Details
Integer, signed	%d or %i	Base 10
Integer, unsigned	%u	Base 10
	%o	Base 8 (octal)
	%x	Base 16 (hexadecimal), lowercase letters a–f
Floating-point number	%f	Fixed-point notation (Use a precision operator to specify the number of digits after the decimal point.)
	%e	Exponential notation, such as 3.141593e+00 (Use a precision operator to specify the number of digits after the decimal point.)
	%g	The more compact of %e or %f, with no trailing zeros (Use a precision operator to specify the number of significant digits.)
Characters	%c	Single character
	%s	Character vector

Examples

>> age = 35;

>> weight = 75.25;

>> fprintf( 'Joe is %d weighs %f kilos\n', age, weight )

Joe is 35 weighs 75.250000 kilos

%d defines age as an integer and %f defines weight as floating point number.

The optional identifier, flags, field width, precision, and subtype operators further define the format of the output text.

·         Identifier – defines the order for processing the function input arguments. Use the syntax n$, where n represents the positions of the other input arguments in the function call.

·         Flag - can be one of the following three characters:

–          Left-justifies the number within the field.

+          Prints a sign character (+ or –) in front of the number.

0          Adds zeros if the number is shorter than the field.

·         Field Width - Minimum number of characters to print. The function pads to field width with spaces before the value.

·         Precision - specifies the number of digits to be displayed to the right of the decimal point.

Example:

>> fprintf( 'Joe weighs %4.4f kilos\n', weight )

Joe weighs 75.2500 kilos

>> fprintf( 'Joe weighs %4.2f kilos\n', weight )

Joe weighs 75.25 kilos

%4.4f in the format specifies that the value as a floating-point number with a field width of four digits, including four digits after the decimal point. %4.2f in the format specifies that the value as a floating-point number with a field width of four digits, including two digits after the decimal point.

Writing data to a File

Write a short table of the exponential function to a text file called exp.txt.

x = 0:.1:1;A = [x; exp(x)];fileID = fopen('exp.txt','w');
fprintf(fileID,'%6s %12s\n','x','exp(x)');
fprintf(fileID,'%6.2f %12.8f\n',A);
fclose(fileID); 
The script open the file exp.txt and write the values of the x and exp(x) to the file.
 
fprintf(fileID,'%6s %12s\n','x','exp(x)') is used to set the header for each column. %6 define the width a 6 for values of x and %12 define the width as 12 for exp(x). fclose command is used to close the file.
 
Some special characters are used as format operators. So we can’t use those characters as ordinary text. This table shows how to represent special characters.
 

Special Character	Representation
Single quotation mark	''
Percent character	%%
Backslash	\\
Alarm	\a
Backspace	\b
Form feed	\f
New line	\n
Carriage return	\r
Horizontal tab	\t
Vertical tab	\v
Character whose ASCII code is the hexadecimal number, N	\xN
Character whose ASCII code is the octal number, N	\N

  

sprintf( )

'sprintf' is the same as fprintf except that it returns the data in a Matlab string rather than writing to a file.

Syntax

str = fprintf(format, A, ...) formats data stored in the variable A and return to the variable str.

Example 
>> w = sprintf( 'Joe weighs %2.4f kilos\n', weight )
w =
Joe weighs 75.2500 kilos

Msgbox( )

msgbox(‘Message’) creates a message box with a OK button that contains the Message to be displayed. The size of the figure is automatically fit to wrap the message. The argument ‘Message’ may be a string vector, string matrix or cell array.
age = 35;
weight = 75.25;
msgbox( sprintf( 'Joe Age is %d years \n Weight is %2.2f kilos', age, weight ))

The message box title and type can be set by the additional optional parameters.

msgbox(‘Message’,’Title’,’Icon’) specifies the Title of the message box and Icon to display in  the message box.  Icon is 'none', 'error', 'help', 'warn', or  'custom'. The default is 'none'. This can be used to create the error or warning messages in the programs.

>> msgbox('The ID you entered in Invalid','Invalid ID','error');

Tips: The error and warning messages can be made by dedicated commands 'errordlg( ) and warndlg( )