How to handle strings containing greek letters in the code

Hi, in my code I need to "spellcheck" a string in an object to insure a uniform format. I use regexprep for this. One such change needed is to change the greek letters 'α' and 'β' to 'a' and 'b' respectively.

It appears that the command window and actual code handle these letters differently and I need a way to use greek letters in the regexprep.

Code:

classdef myObject < handle
  properties
      text
  end
  methods
      function obj = myObject(input)
          obj.text = input;
          spellcheck(obj);
      end

        function spellcheck(obj)
            obj.text = regexprep(obj.text,'β','b');

        end
    end
 end

For example: objText = myObject('testβtest')

returns 'testβtest'

The greek letters in the code are changed to '?' but work fine in the command window.

For example: regexprep('testβtest','β','b')

returns 'testbtest'

Is there a workaround to this problem? It must be relatively efficient, I'm sure opening a file containing the greek letters and assigning them to variables would work but that would slow down the code too much.

Thanks for the help,

~Zach

[Greg]

Maybe it's just me, but I didn't read an actual problem in your question. You say your spellcheck example needs to change beta to b, then go on to show us that it does...

[Zachary Klamer]

It works differently depending on if it is done in the command window or in the code. In the command window it works fine (example 2) but in the code it does not work (example 1).

Answer 1

[stewpend0us]

if you type double('β') in the command line it will return 946.

In your code instead of using 'β' use char(946).

[Zachary Klamer]

Nice!

I ended up getting around it with: native2unicode([206,178],'UTF-8')

But this is much more straightforward. Its silly that this is even a problem but this fixes it.