Why do I get the error 'Missing operator, comma, semicolon, or white space.' when I do not have a space between elements of my matrix?

Why do I get the error 'Missing operator, comma, semicolon, or white space.' when I do not have a space between elements of my matrix?

I have the following code:

a = 2;

b = 'string';

temp = [b '-' num2str(a) ':'num2str(a)]

If I run the code on MATLAB 6.5 (R13), I get the following error:

 ??? temp = [b '-' num2str(a) ':'num2str(a)]

                                 |

 Error: Missing operator, comma, semicolon, or white space.

This code runs without error in MATLAB 5.2 (R10) and MATLAB 5.3 (R11).

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

MATLAB 6.5 (R13) requires that whitespace, a comma, or a semicolon separate the elements of a matrix. This is a change from previous versions of MATLAB. Running the same code in MATLAB 6.0 (R12) will give the following warning:

 Warning: Future versions of MATLAB will require that whitespace, a comma,

 or a semicolon separate elements of a matrix. Please type

 "help matrix_element_separators" at the MATLAB prompt for more information.

Please add a space between elements in your matrix. For example:

a = 2;

b = 'string';

temp = [b '-' num2str(a) ':' num2str(a)]