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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>
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<a name="Strings-1"></a>
<h2 class="chapter">5 Strings</h2>
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<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">
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<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">
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<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">
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<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">
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<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">
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