Printing Vectors Whose Length Is Not Known A-Priori :: MATLAB

Question

I have 3 vectors of variable lengths but bounded between 1 and 5 (both inclusive). I need to print them out (in a "nice" way) while the code runs.

Nice := I want to let all the vectors be printed in such a way that the starting value of each vector in each iteration is aligned.

What I have tried:

Current Bad Version

for it=1:length(a)

fprintf(' %4.4f ',a(it))

end

and similar for other two.

This makes them misaligned. If the first vector is only length 1, everything gets messed up.

Sloppy Output Version

I filled up the empty locations with 0 and printed

for it=1:5

fprintf(' %4.4f ',a(it))

end

but this is sloppy since it gives the reader the wrong impression. The reader will believe that the vector is full length with values 0.

However, this prints it out correctly. All the vectors are appropriately aligned.

Sample

In my code a,b,c are numbers but suppose a,b,c were list of strings. a is the animals I saw today, b is what i ate for lunch and c is where i went today. They vary from day to day.

enter image description here

EDIT : On the last line, Elephant should be RED (in the correct version).

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by 'aligned'. Are you trying to left-justify the numbers? Align on the decimal point? Can you give us examples of your incorrect output and the correct output you're trying to achieve? — beaker

beaker beaker · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-24T21:16:17

Modifying your "sloppy version", you can just print spaces rather than zeros:

for it=1:5

    if a(it) == 0
        % print 11 spaces
        fprintf('           ')
    else
        fprintf(' %4.4f ',a(it))
    end

end

Printing Vectors Whose Length Is Not Known A-Priori :: MATLAB

1 Answers