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

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 them. The main function should then display the results as a string containing x, y, and the totals.

I think there's something I'm not understanding about output arguments. Anyway, here's my (pitiful) code:

function a=addxy(x,y)
a=x+y;

function b=mxy(x,y)
b=x*y;

function c=dxy(x,y)
c=x/y;

The main function is:

function [d e f]=answer(x,y)
d=addxy(x,y);
e=mxy(x,y);
f=dxy(x,y);
z=[d e f]

How do I get the values for x, y, d, e, and f into a string? I tried different matrices and stuff like:

['the sum of' x 'and' y 'is' d]

but none of the variables are showing up.

Two additional issues:

• Why is the function returning "ans 3" even though I didn't ask for the length of z?
• If anyone could recommend a good book for beginners to MATLAB scripting I'd really appreciate it.

You can use fprintf/sprintf with familiar C syntax. Maybe something like:

fprintf('x = %d, y = %d \n x+y=%d \n x*y=%d \n x/y=%f\n', x,y,d,e,f)

reading your comment, this is how you use your functions from the main program:

x = 2;
y = 2;
[d e f] = answer(x,y);
fprintf('%d + %d = %d\n', x,y,d)
fprintf('%d * %d = %d\n', x,y,e)
fprintf('%d / %d = %f\n', x,y,f)

Also for the answer() function, you can assign the output values to a vector instead of three distinct variables:

function result=answer(x,y)
result(1)=addxy(x,y);
result(2)=mxy(x,y);
result(3)=dxy(x,y);

and call it simply as:

out = answer(x,y);

I was looking for something along what you wanted, but wanted to put it back into a variable.

So this is what I did

variable = ['hello this is x' x ', this is now y' y ', finally this is d:' d]

basically

variable = [str1 str2 str3 str4 str5 str6]

Here's how you convert numbers to strings, and join strings to other things (it's weird):

>> ['the number is ' num2str(15) '.']
ans =
the number is 15.

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