Thread Subject: write cell array of strings

I'm scratching my head reading through the help guide and previous newsgroup
posts and I can't figure out how to simply write a cell array of strings to a tab-
separated text file.

I have a cell array of N by M dimensions. Each element is a string-- numerical
data were converted via num2cell() and concatenated to other cell strings.

I want to write a text file with each row of the cell array on its own line with the
elements separated by tabs.

dlmwrite doesn't work because it doesn't recognize cell arrays.

Using a for loop with fprintf pops out with warnings that the %s format specifier
only works with type char.

Any ideas?

"Jeff " <jkear_REMOVE_ns@ucsd.edu> wrote in message
<fc43dp$chq$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> I'm scratching my head reading through the help guide and
previous newsgroup
> posts and I can't figure out how to simply write a cell
array of strings to a tab-
> separated text file.
>
> I have a cell array of N by M dimensions. Each element is
a string-- numerical
> data were converted via num2cell() and concatenated to
other cell strings.
>
> I want to write a text file with each row of the cell
array on its own line with the
> elements separated by tabs.
>
> dlmwrite doesn't work because it doesn't recognize cell
arrays.
>
> Using a for loop with fprintf pops out with warnings that
the %s format specifier
> only works with type char.
>
> Any ideas?

I cannot see why fprintf does not work. I created a 2x3 cell
 with string elements and then I wrote:
.....
>> [M,N] = size(strs);
>> for (i=1:M)
>> for (j=1:N)
>> fprintf(fp, '%s\t',strs{i,j});
>> end
>> fprintf(fp, '\n');
>> end
.....
and everything worked fine.
Regards,
Theodore

-----------------------------------
- http://www.di.uoa.gr/tyiannak -
-----------------------------------

"Jeff " <jkear_REMOVE_ns@ucsd.edu> wrote in message
<fc43dp$chq$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
 
> I have a cell array of N by M dimensions. Each element is
a string-- numerical
> data were converted via num2cell() and concatenated to
other cell strings.

> I want to write a text file with each row of the cell
array on its own line with the
> elements separated by tabs.

a = {'hey' 'there' 'what' 'is' 'up?'};
sprintf('%s\t', a{:})

You can generalize this to a 2D cell array by looping
over the row index.

Jeff:
<SNIP <dlmwrite>ing cells headache...

> dlmwrite doesn't work because it doesn't recognize cell
arrays...

one of the solutions
-note: best look at it in the <original version> to observe
propper formatting...

% the data
     c={
         'a' 'bb' 'ccc' 'dddd'
         'a1' 'b2' 'c3' 'd4'
         'a a' 'b b' 'c c' 'd d'
     };
     fnam='foo.txt'; % <- your file name!
% the engine
     c=c.';
     txt=sprintf([repmat('%s\t',1,size(c,1)),'\n'],c{:});
     dlmwrite(fnam,txt,'');
% the result
     disp(txt)
     type(fnam);

us