Working with character matrices

Hi everyone,

I am trying to put together a matrix that incorporates both numbers and letters. This matrix needs to be able to have basic row and column switching operations done on it.

This is the matrix that I would like to use: [1,a,b,c; d,1,e,f; r,s,1,t;u,v,w,1] How would I input this into Matlab?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

As long as you have just single characters, you can simply put single quotes around each character:

myString = ['1','a','b','c'; 'd','1','e','f'; 'r','s','1','t';'u','v','w','1'];

If there will be different lengths, then you will need to use a cell array.

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

You cannot mix numbers and letters in any kind of numeric MATLAB array. The only kind of array that can handle it is a cell array.

[Dmytri]

In a cell array can you multiply it by an identity matrix or are operations on cells not allowed?

[Jan]

You cannot apply mathematical operation on cells. This would not make sense at all: While I can imagine what 1*1 is, 1*'a' is valid in Matlab, but has a limited sense only.

Perhaps you want to work with symbolical values, where 'a' represents a variable?