sprintf - Format data into string

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
  \b	Backspace
  \f	Form feed
  \n	New line
  \r	Carriage return
  \t	Horizontal 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
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
Floating-point number	%f	Fixed-point notation
	%e	Exponential notation, such as 3.141593e+00
	%E	Same as %e, but uppercase, such as 3.141593E+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 ('%12d', 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'	%05.2f

• 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:

• 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:

  • Issues a warning.

  • 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

• 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