Cell array/Character array to string

I have generated a cell array of characters eg. cea={'8' '_1' '9' '_3'}. I need this to be converted to a string '8_19_3' for labelling a figure.

I have converted to a character array using cha=char(cea), in this example it will be a 4x2 array. Then the correct string can be given by str=[cha(1,:),cha(2,:),cha(3,:),cha(4,:)] (except this has unwanted spaces).

However the length of the character array can vary in a loop. Using str=[cha(1:length(cha),:)] does not give the same string as I think it should.

Why is this and is there a better way to go about doing it?

Thanks

Answer 1

[Andrei Bobrov]

cea={'8' '_1' '9' '_3'}
str = strcat(cea{:})

or

str = [cea{:}];

[Jonathan Midgley]

Simple, perfect