How to convert a sym array into a string array?

I have very long arrays of symbolic variables which I need to convert to cell arrays of strings: For example, turning this:

syms x y u
q = [x y u]

into this:

qs = {'x' 'y' 'u'}

something like num2string() but with syms? I'd appreciate any help, thanks.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

qc = arrayfun(@char, q, 'uniform', 0);

[quoroy]

@Walter Roberson thank you so much! this worked perfectly, can't believe that was possible in one single line of code.

[Juraj Lieskovský]

A slight variant of this is:

qc = arrayfun(@string, q);

which outputs a string array instead of a cell array filled with chars (consequently cellstr() can be used).

[Chris J]

then string1 = cell2mat(qc)

[Walter Roberson]

syms x y u
q = [x y u]

q = 

cellstr(string(q))

ans = 1×3 cell array
    {'x'}    {'y'}    {'u'}