how to create empty string arrays and then populate them through arrayName(indexNumber) syntax

The following works for numbers:

B=[];

B(1)=10;

but how to make it work for strings such as

C=[''];

C(1)='hello';% does NOT work

Answer 1

[Ronald Whiddon]

Declare an empty string array in this manner:

C=string.empty;

C(1)='hello';

C(2) = 'goodbye';

Answer 2

[Dishant Arora]

c{1} = 'hello';

[Ronald Whiddon]

This is a workaround, but it actually creates a cell array of strings.

[Stephen23]

"This is a workaround, but it actually creates a cell array of strings. "

At the time this question was posed (and answered) the string class did not exist (it was only introduced in R2016b). Each element of a character array stores only one character, so (until the string class was introduced) the only way to store multiple characters using a scalar index (as the question poses) is to use a cell array. From that persepctive it is not a "workaround", it is the correct solution for versions of MATLAB before R2016b.

https://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/2016/09/15/introducing-string-arrays/

Answer 3

[Nigel Nettheim]

You can initialise an empty string array with:

s = strings(0)

to which the response is:

s =

0×0 empty string array