Matlab Sort Command Output

I have an equation and the user enters certain numbers into this equation, then it gets x1 x2 x3 numbers but wants them in result with sort, I use the "sort" command for this, but "sort" writes the value of x1. I want the result to be in x1 x2 x3. For example, equation gives me

x1=3 x2=1 x3=2 a=[x1 x2 x3] sort (a) = 1 2 3

I want it to be x2 x3 x1. How can I do that?

Answer 1

[Tommy]

How about this?

x1=3;
x2=1;
x3=2;
a=[x1 x2 x3];
varNames = {'x1','x2','x3'};
[~, idx] = sort(a);
fprintf('Output:\n%s\n', strip(sprintf('%s ', varNames{idx})))

Prints:

Output:
x2 x3 x1

Or if you don't want to have to type the variable names, I guess you could do this?

fprintf(mySort(x1, x2, x3));

function s = mySort(varargin)
    [~, idx] = sort(cell2mat(varargin));
    s = cell(numel(idx),1);
    for i = 1:numel(idx)
        s{i} = inputname(idx(i));
    end
    s = sprintf('Output:\n%s\n', strip(sprintf('%s ', s{:})));
end

Which prints the same thing.

[Veysel Ahmet Özdemir]

It worked very well, thank you so much. Can you explain the logic, it was just copy and paste for me, I want to understand the logic of the commands. In addition, I will do this more than once for various numbers, there is a code that I can show these outputs as a table, I did some research but I couldn't find it :(

Answer 2

[Stephen23]

Using separate variables makes this rather complex.

It would be much simpler if you stored the data in arrays, e.g. in one table:

>> names = {'x1';'x2';'x3'};
>> values = [3;1;2];
>> T = table(names,values)
T = 
    names    values
    _____    ______
    'x1'     3     
    'x2'     1     
    'x3'     2     
>> T = sortrows(T,'values') % this is all you need
T = 
    names    values
    _____    ______
    'x2'     1     
    'x3'     2     
    'x1'     3  

Better data design -> simpler, neater, more efficient code.

[Veysel Ahmet Özdemir]

Thank you so much but i need 2 tables. The first table should only include "x"s. For exp.:

1: x1 x2 x3

2: x2 x3 x1

....

The second table should only include values. For exp.:

1: 1 2 3

2: 2 3 5