Arguments

format

a string providing the format to use to write all next arguments. The format follows -- as close as possible -- the C printf format operand syntax, as described in the printf_conversion page. UTF-8 extended characters and numbered placeholders "%n$.." are supported.

a1,...,an

Data to be converted and written according to the format argument. Supported types: all numbers, booleans, strings. Only the real part of complex numbers is considered (current Scilab limitation).

str

a string, or a column of strings.

Description

str=msprintf(format, a1, a2, ..) replaces placeholders provided inside the format string with values of a1, a2, .. converted according to each respective placeholder directive, and set the result to the str string.

If a1, a2, .. are arrays with multiple rows, they feed the format row by row: the format is used iteratively for every row of the (horizontally "concatenated") arrays, until the bottom of the least tall array is reached. Remaining rows of taller arrays (if any) are ignored. See examples.

If the total number of columns of a1, a2, .. is bigger than the number of placeholders in the format, then extra columns are ignored. If it is smaller, an error is yielded.

If either the format includes some Next_line "\n" sequence, or if all arrays a1, a2.. have at least 2 rows, the result str is a column of strings. See examples.

Examples

msprintf('%5.3f %5.3f',123,0.732)
msprintf('%5.3f\n%5.3f',123,0.732)
msprintf('--%s-\n-%d--',"hello",3)
msprintf('%e ', [1;2;3])
msprintf('%d %d\n', [1, 2; 3, 4])

I = (1:4)';
A = [26.93 ; 63.25 ; 40.51 ; 91.84];
B = [ 3.62 ; 15.04 ; 25.3  ; 48.19];
C = [ 4.37   28.06
     48.18   %inf
     41.48   %nan
     26.39   77.83];
Status = ["NOK" "NOK" "NOK" "OK"]';
Format = "Iteration %d: Results: A= %f   B= %2d%%  Status= %3s   C(1)= %g  C(2)= %e\n";
msprintf(Format, I, A, B, Status, C)

--> msprintf(Format, I, A, B, Status, C)
 ans  =
  "Iteration 1: Results: A= 26.930000   B=  3%  Status= NOK   C(1)= 4.37  C(2)= 2.806000e+01"
  "Iteration 2: Results: A= 63.250000   B= 15%  Status= NOK   C(1)= 48.18  C(2)= Inf"
  "Iteration 3: Results: A= 40.510000   B= 25%  Status= NOK   C(1)= 41.48  C(2)= Nan"
  "Iteration 4: Results: A= 91.840000   B= 48%  Status=  OK   C(1)= 26.39  C(2)= 7.783000e+01"

Supernumerary columns or rows are ignored:

A = [%T  %F  %T  %T  %F]';
B = [ 4.37   28.06
     48.18   %inf
     41.48   %nan ];
msprintf("OK? %s  Value: %4.1f\n", A, B)

--> msprintf("OK? %s  Value: %4.1f\n", A, B)
 ans  =
  "OK? T  Value:  4.4"
  "OK? F  Value: 48.2"
  "OK? T  Value: 41.5"

Numbered placeholders "%n$.." allow reordering printed data with the format:

names = ["Peter", "Martha" "John"]';
ages  = [32 25 8]';
msprintf("%2$6s is %1$d-year old.\n", ages, names)

--> msprintf("%2$6s is %1$d-year old.\n", ages, names)
 ans  =
  " Peter is 32-year old."
  "Martha is 25-year old."
  "  John is 8-year old."

See also

• printf_conversion — mprintf, msprintf, mfprintf C-format specifications
• mprintf — converts, formats, and writes data to the main scilab window
• %chars — Selected sets of Unicode characters

History