Matlab fprintf function returning cell array of strings

Alec Jacobson

June 20, 2011

weblog/

I always forget how to fprintf the output of a function return a cell array. For example:

fprintf('**%s\n',depfun('magic','-quiet'));

Produces the error:

??? Error using ==> fprintf
Function is not defined for 'cell' inputs.

The solution for passing each string in the cell array to fprintf is simple if you can first save the output to a variable:

A = depfun('magic','-quiet');
fprintf('**%s\n',A{:});

Correctly produces

**/Applications/MATLAB_R2010b.app/toolbox/matlab/elmat/magic.m
**/Applications/MATLAB_R2010b.app/toolbox/matlab/datatypes/@opaque/char.m
**/Applications/MATLAB_R2010b.app/toolbox/matlab/datatypes/@opaque/double.m
**/Applications/MATLAB_R2010b.app/toolbox/matlab/datatypes/@opaque/toChar.m
**/Applications/MATLAB_R2010b.app/toolbox/matlab/elmat/meshgrid.m
**/Applications/MATLAB_R2010b.app/toolbox/matlab/ops/@opaque/eq.m
**/Applications/MATLAB_R2010b.app/toolbox/matlab/strfun/@opaque/findstr.m
**/Applications/MATLAB_R2010b.app/toolbox/matlab/strfun/@opaque/private/fromOpaque.m