Display values with fprintf

I would like to display "The return is ... and the standard deviation is ..."? Returns are of the form 6.0033e-04 while standard deviations 0.0207 What should I write in formatSpec?

if true
Mean_return = mean(...);
Standard = (...)
formatSpec = 'Return= %.. SD= %.. \n';
fprintf(formatSpec,Mean_return,Standard)   
end

[Guillaume]

See also plot-titles-in-for-loop-with-string-and-variable-names where you were already told (twice) to read the doc.

[Adam]

Also display-string-and-variables

[Andrea Tersigni]

I asked four times because even if i read all the documentation I still can't do it and I thought this was the place to get help. If someone needs help and you keep cutting and pasting pieces of documentation then Matlab answers is useless.

[Adam]

You haven't shown in any of the questions that you have made any attempt to use fprintf or sprintf. Matlab Answers isn't a substitute for people being too lazy to read documentation, it is here to augment the documentation when questions are either more complicated or it is unclear, but just saying you've read the documentation and you still don't understand without showing any attempt that you made doesn't generally go down well and asking the same question multiple times definitely doesn't.

[Andrea Tersigni]

I'm working on this from this morning and maybe you're too lazy to read below but I posted the errors i got trying everything i READ on the documentation. If you're too good in programming to help beginners then you shouldn't open questions.

[Adam]

Reading the documentation is absolutely the best way for a beginner to learn.

You posted errors that you got, but not the full code that produced them. All we can deduce from the error is exactly what the error tells you as well as us. Matlab errors are generally very good at telling you what the problem is.

Your error below says the function is not defined for struct inputs. If you click on the hyperlinks for the inputs of a function in the documentation (in this case the 'A1,...An') they take you to a section that tells you what types the inputs are allowed to be. In this case it says 'Numeric or character arrays' and you apparently gave it a struct, but you didn't post any code that would give us an idea that what you give it is a struct!

Some people will simply give you a ready done answer to your question which you can copy and paste into your code and move on without needing to understand it. I usually prefer to point you to the right place in the documentation and then answer any questions that result from that so that you learn as you do it. Sometimes I am very patient when I do it, sometimes I am less so if someone keeps posting the same questions without taking on board any of the responses!

[Guillaume]

@Andrea,

The fact that you ask questions, get answers that exactly answer these questions as asked and do not acknowledge the answers nor mark then as accepted is also likely to not go down well.

And re-asking the same question after somebody has given you answer is like telling them: I don't care about your answer so I'll go and ask somebody else. So, why do we bother?

[Massimo Zanetti]

Facing reality, (in my opinion) we should come to a conclusion which is user-independent. We suggest people to (1) ask questions the right way, (2) accept the answers, etc. Realistically, we cannot believe they are all going to do that.. I think this is why some high-reputation contributors have moderating tools such as delete questions, accept answers, etc. If properly used, these tools allows us to mitigate for incorrect and unpolite utilization of this forum.

It is clear the guy here didn't get the point, so let's clear-up the history and go on.

Max

Answer 1

[Massimo Zanetti]

Here it is

ret = 0.000065003;
std = 0.0207;
fprintf('The return is %.4e and the standard deviation is %.4f \n',ret,std)

to get

    The return is 6.5003e-05 and the standard deviation is 0.0207

read the fprintf help page to get printing options based on the number formats.

[Andrea Tersigni]

I get this error:

if true
Error using fprintf
Function is not defined for 'struct' inputs.

Error in PS (line 29) fprintf('The return is %.4e and the standard deviation is %.4f \n',me,st); % code end

[Massimo Zanetti]

It means that your variable(s) me and/or st are structures instead of numerical values. Check it.

Answer 2

[Jan]

formatSpec = 'The return is %g and the standard deviation is %g'

or to specify the decimals:

formatSpec = 'The return is %.4g and the standard deviation is %.4g'