Why array of strings are concatenated?

parameters=['K13','K24','K_52','K63','K74','K80','K101','K114','K162','MI','Ce','Ge','Pe'];

When I use:

size(parameters)

I get this:

ans =

     1    39

But I wanted to get 1*13. I realized it concatenate all the strings to each other:

>> parameters

parameters =

    'K13K24K_52K63K74K80K101K114K162MICeGePe'

How can I define it so that they become separated.

[Stephen23]

Those are not strings, they are character vectors. Note the difference:

• "..." scalar string
• '...' character vector

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/characters-and-strings.html

String arrays and character arrays have very different properties and behaviors!

[Star Strider]

Note that string arrays were introduced in R2016b. Prior to that, strings and character arrays were considered to be the same thing.

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

The square brackets [] are a concatenation operator.

To keep the individual strings as strings, use a cell array:

parameters = {'K13','K24','K_52','K63','K74','K80','K101','K114','K162','MI','Ce','Ge','Pe'};

Note the curly brackets {} denoting a cell array.

See the documentation section on MATLAB Operators and Special Characters

[ME]

This is the same suggestion I made five minutes before!

In fairness though you've actually explained the problem rather than just giving the solution as I did!

[Star Strider]

@ME — Frequently, more than one person is in the process of writing an Answer to a particular Question at the same time. For more detailed Answers that require documentation references, it takes longer. If my Answer essentially duplicates a posted Answer when I discover it, I delete mine. If I believe it adds something, I leave it up.

I almost always delete my Answers if they are not Accepted.

Answer 2

[ME]

You could just store this in a cell array instead - with one parameter inside each cell