Why does NUM2STR not return the correct string format that I specified?

When I use NUM2STR in the following example, the result is a character array of length 6 instead of 10:

d = num2str(123.456, '%10.2f');

whos d

   Name      Size           Bytes  Class

   d         1x6               12  char array

 Grand total is 6 elements using 12 bytes

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

This is the expected behavior of NUM2STR. NUM2STR removes leading spaces from variables.

As a workaround, you can utilize the SPRINTF command, as shown in the following example:

d = sprintf('%10.2f', 123.456);

The result of the variable d will now be a character array whose length is 10 elements.