<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <html> <!-- Created by GNU Texinfo 6.5, http://www.gnu.org/software/texinfo/ --> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> <title>Strings (GNU Octave (version 5.1.0))</title> <meta name="description" content="Strings (GNU Octave (version 5.1.0))"> <meta name="keywords" content="Strings (GNU Octave (version 5.1.0))"> <meta name="resource-type" content="document"> <meta name="distribution" content="global"> <meta name="Generator" content="makeinfo"> <link href="index.html#Top" rel="start" title="Top"> <link href="Concept-Index.html#Concept-Index" rel="index" title="Concept Index"> <link href="index.html#SEC_Contents" rel="contents" title="Table of Contents"> <link href="index.html#Top" rel="up" title="Top"> <link href="Escape-Sequences-in-String-Constants.html#Escape-Sequences-in-String-Constants" rel="next" title="Escape Sequences in String Constants"> <link href="Predicates-for-Numeric-Objects.html#Predicates-for-Numeric-Objects" rel="prev" title="Predicates for Numeric Objects"> <style type="text/css"> <!-- a.summary-letter {text-decoration: none} blockquote.indentedblock {margin-right: 0em} blockquote.smallindentedblock {margin-right: 0em; font-size: smaller} blockquote.smallquotation {font-size: smaller} div.display {margin-left: 3.2em} div.example {margin-left: 3.2em} div.lisp {margin-left: 3.2em} div.smalldisplay {margin-left: 3.2em} div.smallexample {margin-left: 3.2em} div.smalllisp {margin-left: 3.2em} kbd {font-style: oblique} pre.display {font-family: inherit} pre.format {font-family: inherit} pre.menu-comment {font-family: serif} pre.menu-preformatted {font-family: serif} pre.smalldisplay {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller} pre.smallexample {font-size: smaller} pre.smallformat {font-family: inherit; font-size: smaller} pre.smalllisp {font-size: smaller} span.nolinebreak {white-space: nowrap} span.roman {font-family: initial; font-weight: normal} span.sansserif {font-family: sans-serif; font-weight: normal} ul.no-bullet {list-style: none} --> </style> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="octave.css"> </head> <body lang="en"> <a name="Strings"></a> <div class="header"> <p> Next: <a href="Data-Containers.html#Data-Containers" accesskey="n" rel="next">Data Containers</a>, Previous: <a href="Numeric-Data-Types.html#Numeric-Data-Types" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Numeric Data Types</a>, Up: <a href="index.html#Top" accesskey="u" rel="up">Top</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Concept-Index.html#Concept-Index" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p> </div> <hr> <a name="Strings-1"></a> <h2 class="chapter">5 Strings</h2> <a name="index-strings-1"></a> <a name="index-character-strings-1"></a> <a name="index-_0022-1"></a> <a name="index-_0027-1"></a> <p>A <em>string constant</em> consists of a sequence of characters enclosed in either double-quote or single-quote marks. For example, both of the following expressions </p> <div class="example"> <pre class="example">"parrot" 'parrot' </pre></div> <p>represent the string whose contents are ‘<samp>parrot</samp>’. Strings in Octave can be of any length. </p> <p>Since the single-quote mark is also used for the transpose operator (see <a href="Arithmetic-Ops.html#Arithmetic-Ops">Arithmetic Ops</a>) but double-quote marks have no other purpose in Octave, it is best to use double-quote marks to denote strings. </p> <p>Strings can be concatenated using the notation for defining matrices. For example, the expression </p> <div class="example"> <pre class="example">[ "foo" , "bar" , "baz" ] </pre></div> <p>produces the string whose contents are ‘<samp>foobarbaz</samp>’. See <a href="Numeric-Data-Types.html#Numeric-Data-Types">Numeric Data Types</a>, for more information about creating matrices. </p> <p>While strings can in principal store arbitrary content, most functions expect them to be UTF-8 encoded Unicode strings. </p> <table class="menu" border="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Escape-Sequences-in-String-Constants.html#Escape-Sequences-in-String-Constants" accesskey="1">Escape Sequences in String Constants</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top"> </td></tr> <tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Character-Arrays.html#Character-Arrays" accesskey="2">Character Arrays</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top"> </td></tr> <tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Creating-Strings.html#Creating-Strings" accesskey="3">Creating Strings</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top"> </td></tr> <tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Comparing-Strings.html#Comparing-Strings" accesskey="4">Comparing Strings</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top"> </td></tr> <tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Manipulating-Strings.html#Manipulating-Strings" accesskey="5">Manipulating Strings</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top"> </td></tr> <tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="String-Conversions.html#String-Conversions" accesskey="6">String Conversions</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top"> </td></tr> <tr><td align="left" valign="top">• <a href="Character-Class-Functions.html#Character-Class-Functions" accesskey="7">Character Class Functions</a>:</td><td> </td><td align="left" valign="top"> </td></tr> </table> </body> </html>