fprintf to txt file command

When I was trying to convert to use fprintf to make a txt file, I came across the following code wile using docsearch to find more information. The code below works fine but I don't understand what the 'w' in the first line of code does. The only thing that I could discern was that the code will not work with it, but what is its specific function?

fileID=fopen('Example.txt','w');
fprintf(fileID,'%s %11s\n','title1','title2');
fprintf(fileID,'%u %13.3e\n',data');

type ('Example.txt')

[Stephen23]

Try reading through the fopen documentation. It is really useful for telling you what "function" different syntaxes have.

Answer 1

[Geoff Hayes]

Shengyi - the w is the file access type for the file that you are opening. In this case, the w indicates that you are opening a file for writing. If the file doesn't exist, a new one will be created. And if the file already exists, the current contents will be discarded.

See fopen input argument permissions for the different values that can be used when opening a file (for reading, writing, appending, etc.).