Give title for Table

Is it possible to give title for a table i have displayed as below

If i wanted to give a title 'My Table', how to give it?

Details = [38,71,176,124,93;...
    43,69,163,109,77;...
    38,64,131,125,83;...
    40,67,133,117,75;...
    49,64,119,122,80];

T = array2table(Details,...
    'VariableNames',{'Age' 'Height' 'Weight' 'BP_High' 'BP_Low'},...
     'RowNames',{'Smith';'Johnson';'Williams';'Jones';'Brown'}); 
disp(T) 

Answer 1

[Adam Danz]

You could effectively give a title to a table by nesting the table within another single-column table that contains the title.

Details = [38,71,176,124,93;...
    43,69,163,109,77;...
    38,64,131,125,83;...
    40,67,133,117,75;...
    49,64,119,122,80];
T = array2table(Details,...
    'VariableNames',{'Age' 'Height' 'Weight' 'BP_High' 'BP_Low'},...
     'RowNames',{'Smith';'Johnson';'Williams';'Jones';'Brown'}); 

T = table(T,'VariableNames',{'My Table'}); % Nested table
disp(T)

                            My Table                        
                Age    Height    Weight    BP_High    BP_Low
    ________________________________________________________

    Smith       38       71       176        124        93  
    Johnson     43       69       163        109        77  
    Williams    38       64       131        125        83  
    Jones       40       67       133        117        75  
    Brown       49       64       119        122        80  

However, now you'll have to index the table differently. For example, to access Height,

T.('My Table').Height

Or to access the 3rd row,

T.('My Table')(3,:)

or you could un-nest the table,

T = T.('My Table');

[Walter Roberson]

Good point. Though for general variable names you need r2019b or later, and I think the user is using a release before that (but I could be misremembering)

[Elysi Cochin]

Yes Sir, my version is 2018a, but that was what i wanted

I get error

Error using table (line 307)
'My Table' is not a valid variable name.

Error in demoo (line 10)
T = table(T,'VariableNames',{'My Table'}); % Nested table

[Adam Danz]

Well, as Walter Roberson pointed out, that option didn't exist until later.

[Adam Danz]

There isn't much utillity in assigning a table title in Matlab. It requires additional steps when accessing the data and doesn't offer any additional benefits in referencing tables. If the table is to be displayed in a text file, the title could be added within the file after exporting it. If you want to display the title in the command window and identify the table by some kind of table name, you could always use an fprintf command to display the title name just before displaying the table.

[Elysi Cochin]

Yes sir, that is a better and simple option in my case, as i just need to display. Thank you sir

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

No, table() is designed for programming, not for display purposes.

[Elysi Cochin]

so not possible to give title?

[Walter Roberson]

Yes, it is possible to give a title to a table.

filename = fullfile(matlabroot, 'toolbox', 'matlab', 'datatypes', 'tabular', '@tabular', 'disp.m');
edit(filename)

Look close to the end of the first function, somewhere near line 265. You will see code that looks like

    [varChars,nestedVarChars,underlines] = getVarNamesDispLines();
    disp(char(varChars));

That is the line of code that displays the variable names, and the next few lines of code display headers and then the content. By this point in the code, everything has been computed and put into arrays for later display.

So just before that getVarNamesDispLines(), insert your code that figures out the title to use for the table, and then display it.

Last I recall you were using R2017a. If you were using R2018b or later you could use addprop() https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/addprop.html to create a custom table property. Custom table properties are not displayed, but they are stored with the table, so you could addprop() a title, and then in the code for tabular disp, check to see if the property exists and if so then display it.

This is all to answer the question of whether it is possible to give a title to a table: the answer is Yes, you can modify the Mathworks-supplied code to allow for a title. If the question where whether there is any supported method, the answer would be what I originally posted: NO.

[Elysi Cochin]

Thank you so much for the detailed explaination