| format | String in single quotation marks that describes the format of the output fields. Can include combinations of the following:
-
Percent sign followed by a conversion character, such as '%s' for strings. -
Operators that describe field width, precision, and other options. -
Literal text to print. -
Escape characters, including:
| '' | Single quotation mark | | %% | Percent character | | \\ | Backslash | | \a | Alarm | | \b | Backspace | | \f | Form feed | | \n | New line | | \r | Carriage return | | \t | Horizontal tab | | \v | Vertical tab | | \xN | Hexadecimal number,N | | \N | Octal number, N |
Conversion characters and optional operators appear in the following order (includes spaces for clarity): The following table lists the available conversion characters and subtypes.
| Value Type | Conversion | Details |
|---|
| Integer, signed | %d or %i | Base 10 values | | %ld or %li | 64-bit base 10 values | | %hd or %hi | 16-bit base 10 values | | Integer, unsigned | %u | Base 10 | | %o | Base 8 (octal) | | %x | Base 16 (hexadecimal), lowercase letters a–f | | %X | Same as %x, uppercase letters A–F | | %lu
%lo
%lx or %lX | 64-bit values, base 10, 8, or 16 | | %hu
%ho
%hx or %hX | 16-bit values, base 10, 8, or 16 | | Floating-point number | %f | Fixed-point notation | | %e | Exponential notation, such as3.141593e+00 | | %E | Same as %e, but uppercase, such as3.141593E+00 | | %g | The more compact of %e or %f, with no trailing zeros | | %G | The more compact of %E or %f, with no trailing zeros | | %bx or %bX
%bo
%bu | Double-precision hexadecimal, octal, or decimal value
Example: %bx prints pi as 400921fb54442d18 | | %tx or %tX
%to
%tu | Single-precision hexadecimal, octal, or decimal value
Example: %tx prints pi as 40490fdb | | Characters | %c | Single character | | %s | String of characters |
Additional operators include:
-
Field width Minimum number of characters to print. Can be a number, or an asterisk (*) to refer to an argument in the input list. For example, the input list ('d', intmax) is equivalent to ('%*d', 12, intmax). -
Precision
| For %f, %e, or %E: | Number of digits to the right of the decimal point.
Example: '%6.4f' prints pi as '3.1416' | | For %g or %G | Number of significant digits.
Example: '%6.4g' prints pi as ' 3.142' |
Can be a number, or an asterisk (*) to refer to an argument in the input list. For example, the input list ('%6.4f', pi) is equivalent to ('%*.*f', 6, 4, pi). -
Flags
| Action | Flag | Example |
|---|
| Left-justify. | '–' | %-5.2f | | Print sign character (+ or –). | '+' | %+5.2f | | Insert a space before the value. | ' ' | % 5.2f | | Pad with zeros. | '0' | .2f | | Modify selected numeric conversions:
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For %o, %x, or %X, print 0, 0x, or 0X prefix. -
For %f, %e, or %E, print decimal point even when precision is 0. -
For %g or %G, do not remove trailing zeros or decimal point.
| '#' | %#5.0f |
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Identifier Order for processing inputs. Use the syntax n$, where n represents the position of the value in the input list. For example, '%3$s %2$s %1$s %2$s' prints inputs 'A', 'B', 'C' as follows: C B A B.
The following limitations apply to conversions:
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Numeric conversions print only the real component of complex numbers. -
If you apply an integer or string conversion to a numeric value that contains a fraction, MATLAB overrides the specified conversion, and uses %e. -
If you apply a string conversion (%s) to integer values, MATLAB converts values that correspond to valid character codes to characters. For example, '%s'converts [65 66 67] to ABC. -
Different platforms display exponential notation (such as %e) with a different number of digits in the exponent.
| Platform | Example |
|---|
| Windows | 1.23e+004 | | UNIX | 1.23e+04 |
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Different platforms display negative zero (-0) differently.
| | Conversion Character |
|---|
| Platform | %e or %E | %f | %g or %G |
|---|
| Windows | 0.000000e+000 | 0.000000 | 0 | | Others | -0.000000e+00 | -0.000000 | -0 |
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