Question

I’m trying to merge cell-array of strings delimiting each by new line to one string in Matlab.
Following method merges the strings, but the final string contains \n instead of new lines:

function str = toString(self)
    % some not important logic that creates cell array called strings
    % ...
    str = '';
    for i = 1 : 9               
        str = strcat(str, strings(i), '\n');
    end  
end

It returns: ' 111\n 111\n 111\n333666444555\n333666444555\n333666444555\n 222\n 222\n 222\n'

When I add str = sprintf(str); before the end of the method, it returns Invalid format error. However when I write to Matlab command window sprintf(' 111\n 111\n 111\n333666444555\n333666444555\n333666444555\n 222\n 222\n 222\n'); it returns formatted string without any errors.

Anyone knows what could be a problem? Why it works in command window but doesn’t in .m file?

Answer 1

sprintf will loop over the elements or your cell array:

sprintf('%s\n', strings{:})

The problem with your loop is ‘\n’ is a 2 element char array, but what you want is sprintf(‘\n’)