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<a name="Manipulating-Strings"></a>
<p>
Next: <a rel="next" accesskey="n" href="String-Conversions.html#String-Conversions">String Conversions</a>,
Previous: <a rel="previous" accesskey="p" href="Comparing-Strings.html#Comparing-Strings">Comparing Strings</a>,
Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="Strings.html#Strings">Strings</a>
<hr>
</div>
<h3 class="section">5.5 Manipulating Strings</h3>
<p>Octave supports a wide range of functions for manipulating strings.
Since a string is just a matrix, simple manipulations can be accomplished
using standard operators. The following example shows how to replace
all blank characters with underscores.
<pre class="example"> quote = ...
"First things first, but not necessarily in that order";
quote( quote == " " ) = "_"
⇒ quote =
First_things_first,_but_not_necessarily_in_that_order
</pre>
<p>For more complex manipulations, such as searching, replacing, and
general regular expressions, the following functions come with Octave.
<!-- ./strings/deblank.m -->
<p><a name="doc_002ddeblank"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Function File: <b>deblank</b> (<var>s</var>)<var><a name="index-deblank-312"></a></var><br>
<blockquote><p>Remove trailing blanks and nulls from <var>s</var>. If <var>s</var>
is a matrix, <var>deblank</var> trims each row to the length of longest
string. If <var>s</var> is a cell array, operate recursively on each
element of the cell array.
</p></blockquote></div>
<!-- ./strings/strtrim.m -->
<p><a name="doc_002dstrtrim"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Function File: <b>strtrim</b> (<var>s</var>)<var><a name="index-strtrim-313"></a></var><br>
<blockquote><p>Remove leading and trailing blanks and nulls from <var>s</var>. If
<var>s</var> is a matrix, <var>strtrim</var> trims each row to the length of
longest string. If <var>s</var> is a cell array, operate recursively on
each element of the cell array. For example:
<pre class="example"> strtrim (" abc ")
⇒ "abc"
strtrim ([" abc "; " def "])
⇒ ["abc "; " def"]
</pre>
</blockquote></div>
<!-- ./strings/strtrunc.m -->
<p><a name="doc_002dstrtrunc"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Function File: <b>strtrunc</b> (<var>s, n</var>)<var><a name="index-strtrunc-314"></a></var><br>
<blockquote><p>Truncate the character string <var>s</var> to length <var>n</var>. If <var>s</var>
is a char matrix, then the number of columns is adjusted.
<p>If <var>s</var> is a cell array of strings, then the operation is performed
on its members and the new cell array is returned.
</p></blockquote></div>
<!-- ./strings/findstr.m -->
<p><a name="doc_002dfindstr"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Function File: <b>findstr</b> (<var>s, t, overlap</var>)<var><a name="index-findstr-315"></a></var><br>
<blockquote><p>Return the vector of all positions in the longer of the two strings
<var>s</var> and <var>t</var> where an occurrence of the shorter of the two starts.
If the optional argument <var>overlap</var> is nonzero, the returned vector
can include overlapping positions (this is the default). For example,
<pre class="example"> findstr ("ababab", "a")
⇒ [1, 3, 5]
findstr ("abababa", "aba", 0)
⇒ [1, 5]
</pre>
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<p class="noindent"><strong>See also:</strong> <a href="doc_002dstrfind.html#doc_002dstrfind">strfind</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrmatch.html#doc_002dstrmatch">strmatch</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrcmp.html#doc_002dstrcmp">strcmp</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrncmp.html#doc_002dstrncmp">strncmp</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrcmpi.html#doc_002dstrcmpi">strcmpi</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrncmpi.html#doc_002dstrncmpi">strncmpi</a>, <a href="doc_002dfind.html#doc_002dfind">find</a>.
</p></blockquote></div>
<!-- ./strings/strchr.m -->
<p><a name="doc_002dstrchr"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Function File: <var>idx</var> = <b>strchr</b> (<var>str, chars</var>)<var><a name="index-strchr-316"></a></var><br>
— Function File: <var>idx</var> = <b>strchr</b> (<var>str, chars, n</var>)<var><a name="index-strchr-317"></a></var><br>
— Function File: <var>idx</var> = <b>strchr</b> (<var>str, chars, n, direction</var>)<var><a name="index-strchr-318"></a></var><br>
<blockquote><p>Search for the string <var>str</var> for occurrences of characters from the set <var>chars</var>.
The return value, as well as the <var>n</var> and <var>direction</var> arguments behave
identically as in <code>find</code>.
<p>This will be faster than using regexp in most cases.
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<p class="noindent"><strong>See also:</strong> <a href="doc_002dfind.html#doc_002dfind">find</a>.
</p></blockquote></div>
<!-- ./strings/index.m -->
<p><a name="doc_002dindex"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Function File: <b>index</b> (<var>s, t</var>)<var><a name="index-index-319"></a></var><br>
— Function File: <b>index</b> (<var>s, t, direction</var>)<var><a name="index-index-320"></a></var><br>
<blockquote><p>Return the position of the first occurrence of the string <var>t</var> in the
string <var>s</var>, or 0 if no occurrence is found. For example,
<pre class="example"> index ("Teststring", "t")
⇒ 4
</pre>
<p>If <var>direction</var> is ‘<samp><span class="samp">"first"</span></samp>’, return the first element found.
If <var>direction</var> is ‘<samp><span class="samp">"last"</span></samp>’, return the last element found.
The <code>rindex</code> function is equivalent to <code>index</code> with
<var>direction</var> set to ‘<samp><span class="samp">"last"</span></samp>’.
<p><strong>Caution:</strong> This function does not work for arrays of
character strings.
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<p class="noindent"><strong>See also:</strong> <a href="doc_002dfind.html#doc_002dfind">find</a>, <a href="doc_002drindex.html#doc_002drindex">rindex</a>.
</p></blockquote></div>
<!-- ./strings/rindex.m -->
<p><a name="doc_002drindex"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Function File: <b>rindex</b> (<var>s, t</var>)<var><a name="index-rindex-321"></a></var><br>
<blockquote><p>Return the position of the last occurrence of the character string
<var>t</var> in the character string <var>s</var>, or 0 if no occurrence is
found. For example,
<pre class="example"> rindex ("Teststring", "t")
⇒ 6
</pre>
<p><strong>Caution:</strong> This function does not work for arrays of
character strings.
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<p class="noindent"><strong>See also:</strong> <a href="doc_002dfind.html#doc_002dfind">find</a>, <a href="doc_002dindex.html#doc_002dindex">index</a>.
</p></blockquote></div>
<!-- ./strings/strfind.m -->
<p><a name="doc_002dstrfind"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Function File: <var>idx</var> = <b>strfind</b> (<var>str, pattern</var>)<var><a name="index-strfind-322"></a></var><br>
— Function File: <var>idx</var> = <b>strfind</b> (<var>cellstr, pattern</var>)<var><a name="index-strfind-323"></a></var><br>
<blockquote><p>Search for <var>pattern</var> in the string <var>str</var> and return the
starting index of every such occurrence in the vector <var>idx</var>.
If there is no such occurrence, or if <var>pattern</var> is longer
than <var>str</var>, then <var>idx</var> is the empty array <code>[]</code>.
<p>If the cell array of strings <var>cellstr</var> is specified instead of the
string <var>str</var>, then <var>idx</var> is a cell array of vectors, as specified
above. Examples:
<pre class="example"> strfind ("abababa", "aba")
⇒ [1, 3, 5]
strfind ({"abababa", "bebebe", "ab"}, "aba")
⇒ ans =
{
[1,1] =
1 3 5
[1,2] = [](1x0)
[1,3] = [](1x0)
}
</pre>
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<p class="noindent"><strong>See also:</strong> <a href="doc_002dfindstr.html#doc_002dfindstr">findstr</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrmatch.html#doc_002dstrmatch">strmatch</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrcmp.html#doc_002dstrcmp">strcmp</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrncmp.html#doc_002dstrncmp">strncmp</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrcmpi.html#doc_002dstrcmpi">strcmpi</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrncmpi.html#doc_002dstrncmpi">strncmpi</a>, <a href="doc_002dfind.html#doc_002dfind">find</a>.
</p></blockquote></div>
<!-- ./strings/strmatch.m -->
<p><a name="doc_002dstrmatch"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Function File: <b>strmatch</b> (<var>s, a, "exact"</var>)<var><a name="index-strmatch-324"></a></var><br>
<blockquote><p>Return indices of entries of <var>a</var> that match the string <var>s</var>.
The second argument <var>a</var> may be a string matrix or a cell array of
strings. If the third argument <code>"exact"</code> is not given, then
<var>s</var> only needs to match <var>a</var> up to the length of <var>s</var>. Nul
characters match blanks. Results are returned as a column vector.
For example:
<pre class="example"> strmatch ("apple", "apple juice")
⇒ 1
strmatch ("apple", ["apple pie"; "apple juice"; "an apple"])
⇒ [1; 2]
strmatch ("apple", {"apple pie"; "apple juice"; "tomato"})
⇒ [1; 2]
</pre>
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<p class="noindent"><strong>See also:</strong> <a href="doc_002dstrfind.html#doc_002dstrfind">strfind</a>, <a href="doc_002dfindstr.html#doc_002dfindstr">findstr</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrcmp.html#doc_002dstrcmp">strcmp</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrncmp.html#doc_002dstrncmp">strncmp</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrcmpi.html#doc_002dstrcmpi">strcmpi</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrncmpi.html#doc_002dstrncmpi">strncmpi</a>, <a href="doc_002dfind.html#doc_002dfind">find</a>.
</p></blockquote></div>
<!-- ./strings/strtok.m -->
<p><a name="doc_002dstrtok"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Function File: [<var>tok</var>, <var>rem</var>] = <b>strtok</b> (<var>str, delim</var>)<var><a name="index-strtok-325"></a></var><br>
<blockquote>
<p>Find all characters up to but not including the first character which
is in the string delim. If <var>rem</var> is requested, it contains the
remainder of the string, starting at the first delimiter. Leading
delimiters are ignored. If <var>delim</var> is not specified, space is
assumed. For example:
<pre class="example"> strtok ("this is the life")
⇒ "this"
[tok, rem] = strtok ("14*27+31", "+-*/")
⇒
tok = 14
rem = *27+31
</pre>
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<p class="noindent"><strong>See also:</strong> <a href="doc_002dindex.html#doc_002dindex">index</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrsplit.html#doc_002dstrsplit">strsplit</a>.
</p></blockquote></div>
<!-- ./strings/strsplit.m -->
<p><a name="doc_002dstrsplit"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Function File: [<var>s</var>] = <b>strsplit</b> (<var>p, sep, strip_empty</var>)<var><a name="index-strsplit-326"></a></var><br>
<blockquote><p>Split a single string using one or more delimiters and return a cell
array of strings. Consecutive delimiters and delimiters at
boundaries result in empty strings, unless <var>strip_empty</var> is true.
The default value of <var>strip_empty</var> is false.
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<p class="noindent"><strong>See also:</strong> <a href="doc_002dstrtok.html#doc_002dstrtok">strtok</a>.
</p></blockquote></div>
<!-- ./strings/strrep.m -->
<p><a name="doc_002dstrrep"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Function File: <b>strrep</b> (<var>s, x, y</var>)<var><a name="index-strrep-327"></a></var><br>
<blockquote><p>Replace all occurrences of the substring <var>x</var> of the string <var>s</var>
with the string <var>y</var> and return the result. For example,
<pre class="example"> strrep ("This is a test string", "is", "&%$")
⇒ "Th&%$ &%$ a test string"
</pre>
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<p class="noindent"><strong>See also:</strong> <a href="doc_002dregexprep.html#doc_002dregexprep">regexprep</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrfind.html#doc_002dstrfind">strfind</a>, <a href="doc_002dfindstr.html#doc_002dfindstr">findstr</a>.
</p></blockquote></div>
<!-- ./strings/substr.m -->
<p><a name="doc_002dsubstr"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Function File: <b>substr</b> (<var>s, offset, len</var>)<var><a name="index-substr-328"></a></var><br>
<blockquote><p>Return the substring of <var>s</var> which starts at character number
<var>offset</var> and is <var>len</var> characters long.
<p>If <var>offset</var> is negative, extraction starts that far from the end of
the string. If <var>len</var> is omitted, the substring extends to the end
of S.
<p>For example,
<pre class="example"> substr ("This is a test string", 6, 9)
⇒ "is a test"
</pre>
<p>This function is patterned after AWK. You can get the same result by
<var>s</var><code>(</code><var>offset</var><code> : (</code><var>offset</var><code> + </code><var>len</var><code> - 1))</code>.
</p></blockquote></div>
<!-- ./DLD-FUNCTIONS/regexp.cc -->
<p><a name="doc_002dregexp"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Loadable Function: [<var>s</var>, <var>e</var>, <var>te</var>, <var>m</var>, <var>t</var>, <var>nm</var>] = <b>regexp</b> (<var>str, pat</var>)<var><a name="index-regexp-329"></a></var><br>
— Loadable Function: [<small class="dots">...</small>] = <b>regexp</b> (<var>str, pat, opts, <small class="dots">...</small></var>)<var><a name="index-regexp-330"></a></var><br>
<blockquote>
<p>Regular expression string matching. Matches <var>pat</var> in <var>str</var> and
returns the position and matching substrings or empty values if there are
none.
<p>The matched pattern <var>pat</var> can include any of the standard regex
operators, including:
<dl>
<dt><code>.</code><dd>Match any character
<br><dt><code>* + ? {}</code><dd>Repetition operators, representing
<dl>
<dt><code>*</code><dd>Match zero or more times
<br><dt><code>+</code><dd>Match one or more times
<br><dt><code>?</code><dd>Match zero or one times
<br><dt><code>{}</code><dd>Match range operator, which is of the form <code>{</code><var>n</var><code>}</code> to match exactly
<var>n</var> times, <code>{</code><var>m</var><code>,}</code> to match <var>m</var> or more times,
<code>{</code><var>m</var><code>,</code><var>n</var><code>}</code> to match between <var>m</var> and <var>n</var> times.
</dl>
<br><dt><code>[...] [^...]</code><dd>List operators, where for example <code>[ab]c</code> matches <code>ac</code> and <code>bc</code>
<br><dt><code>()</code><dd>Grouping operator
<br><dt><code>|</code><dd>Alternation operator. Match one of a choice of regular expressions. The
alternatives must be delimited by the grouping operator <code>()</code> above
<br><dt><code>^ $</code><dd>Anchoring operator. <code>^</code> matches the start of the string <var>str</var> and
<code>$</code> the end
</dl>
<p>In addition the following escaped characters have special meaning. It should
be noted that it is recommended to quote <var>pat</var> in single quotes rather
than double quotes, to avoid the escape sequences being interpreted by Octave
before being passed to <code>regexp</code>.
<dl>
<dt><code>\b</code><dd>Match a word boundary
<br><dt><code>\B</code><dd>Match within a word
<br><dt><code>\w</code><dd>Matches any word character
<br><dt><code>\W</code><dd>Matches any non word character
<br><dt><code>\<</code><dd>Matches the beginning of a word
<br><dt><code>\></code><dd>Matches the end of a word
<br><dt><code>\s</code><dd>Matches any whitespace character
<br><dt><code>\S</code><dd>Matches any non whitespace character
<br><dt><code>\d</code><dd>Matches any digit
<br><dt><code>\D</code><dd>Matches any non-digit
</dl>
<p>The outputs of <code>regexp</code> by default are in the order as given below
<dl>
<dt><var>s</var><dd>The start indices of each of the matching substrings
<br><dt><var>e</var><dd>The end indices of each matching substring
<br><dt><var>te</var><dd>The extents of each of the matched token surrounded by <code>(...)</code> in
<var>pat</var>.
<br><dt><var>m</var><dd>A cell array of the text of each match.
<br><dt><var>t</var><dd>A cell array of the text of each token matched.
<br><dt><var>nm</var><dd>A structure containing the text of each matched named token, with the name
being used as the fieldname. A named token is denoted as
<code>(?<name>...)</code>
</dl>
<p>Particular output arguments or the order of the output arguments can be
selected by additional <var>opts</var> arguments. These are strings and the
correspondence between the output arguments and the optional argument
are
<p><table summary=""><tr align="left"><td valign="top" width="20%"></td><td valign="top" width="30%">'start' </td><td valign="top" width="30%"><var>s</var> </td><td valign="top" width="20%">
<br></td></tr><tr align="left"><td valign="top" width="20%"></td><td valign="top" width="30%">'end' </td><td valign="top" width="30%"><var>e</var> </td><td valign="top" width="20%">
<br></td></tr><tr align="left"><td valign="top" width="20%"></td><td valign="top" width="30%">'tokenExtents' </td><td valign="top" width="30%"><var>te</var> </td><td valign="top" width="20%">
<br></td></tr><tr align="left"><td valign="top" width="20%"></td><td valign="top" width="30%">'match' </td><td valign="top" width="30%"><var>m</var> </td><td valign="top" width="20%">
<br></td></tr><tr align="left"><td valign="top" width="20%"></td><td valign="top" width="30%">'tokens' </td><td valign="top" width="30%"><var>t</var> </td><td valign="top" width="20%">
<br></td></tr><tr align="left"><td valign="top" width="20%"></td><td valign="top" width="30%">'names' </td><td valign="top" width="30%"><var>nm</var> </td><td valign="top" width="20%">
<br></td></tr></table>
<p>A further optional argument is 'once', that limits the number of returned
matches to the first match. Additional arguments are
<dl>
<dt>matchcase<dd>Make the matching case sensitive.
<br><dt>ignorecase<dd>Make the matching case insensitive.
<br><dt>stringanchors<dd>Match the anchor characters at the beginning and end of the string.
<br><dt>lineanchors<dd>Match the anchor characters at the beginning and end of the line.
<br><dt>dotall<dd>The character <code>.</code> matches the newline character.
<br><dt>dotexceptnewline<dd>The character <code>.</code> matches all but the newline character.
<br><dt>freespacing<dd>The pattern can include arbitrary whitespace and comments starting with
<code>#</code>.
<br><dt>literalspacing<dd>The pattern is taken literally.
</dl>
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<!-- @sp 1 -->
<p class="noindent"><strong>See also:</strong> <a href="doc_002dregexpi.html#doc_002dregexpi">regexpi</a>, <a href="doc_002dregexprep.html#doc_002dregexprep">regexprep</a>.
</p></blockquote></div>
<!-- ./DLD-FUNCTIONS/regexp.cc -->
<p><a name="doc_002dregexpi"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Loadable Function: [<var>s</var>, <var>e</var>, <var>te</var>, <var>m</var>, <var>t</var>, <var>nm</var>] = <b>regexpi</b> (<var>str, pat</var>)<var><a name="index-regexpi-331"></a></var><br>
— Loadable Function: [<small class="dots">...</small>] = <b>regexpi</b> (<var>str, pat, opts, <small class="dots">...</small></var>)<var><a name="index-regexpi-332"></a></var><br>
<blockquote>
<p>Case insensitive regular expression string matching. Matches <var>pat</var> in
<var>str</var> and returns the position and matching substrings or empty values
if there are none. See <a href="doc_002dregexp.html#doc_002dregexp">regexp</a>, for more details
</p></blockquote></div>
<!-- ./DLD-FUNCTIONS/regexp.cc -->
<p><a name="doc_002dregexprep"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Loadable Function: <var>string</var> = <b>regexprep</b> (<var>string, pat, repstr, options</var>)<var><a name="index-regexprep-333"></a></var><br>
<blockquote><p>Replace matches of <var>pat</var> in <var>string</var> with <var>repstr</var>.
<p>The replacement can contain <code>$i</code>, which substitutes
for the ith set of parentheses in the match string. E.g.,
<pre class="example">
regexprep("Bill Dunn",'(\w+) (\w+)','$2, $1')
</pre>
<p>returns "Dunn, Bill"
<p><var>options</var> may be zero or more of
<dl>
<dt>‘<samp><span class="samp">once</span></samp>’<dd>Replace only the first occurrence of <var>pat</var> in the result.
<br><dt>‘<samp><span class="samp">warnings</span></samp>’<dd>This option is present for compatibility but is ignored.
<br><dt>‘<samp><span class="samp">ignorecase or matchcase</span></samp>’<dd>Ignore case for the pattern matching (see <code>regexpi</code>).
Alternatively, use (?i) or (?-i) in the pattern.
<br><dt>‘<samp><span class="samp">lineanchors and stringanchors</span></samp>’<dd>Whether characters ^ and $ match the beginning and ending of lines.
Alternatively, use (?m) or (?-m) in the pattern.
<br><dt>‘<samp><span class="samp">dotexceptnewline and dotall</span></samp>’<dd>Whether . matches newlines in the string.
Alternatively, use (?s) or (?-s) in the pattern.
<br><dt>‘<samp><span class="samp">freespacing or literalspacing</span></samp>’<dd>Whether whitespace and # comments can be used to make the regular expression more readable.
Alternatively, use (?x) or (?-x) in the pattern.
</dl>
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<p class="noindent"><strong>See also:</strong> <a href="doc_002dregexp.html#doc_002dregexp">regexp</a>, <a href="doc_002dregexpi.html#doc_002dregexpi">regexpi</a>, <a href="doc_002dstrrep.html#doc_002dstrrep">strrep</a>.
</p></blockquote></div>
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<p><a name="doc_002dregexptranslate"></a>
<div class="defun">
— Function File: <b>regexptranslate</b> (<var>op, s</var>)<var><a name="index-regexptranslate-334"></a></var><br>
<blockquote><p>Translate a string for use in a regular expression. This might
include either wildcard replacement or special character escaping.
The behavior can be controlled by the <var>op</var> that can have the
values
<dl>
<dt>"wildcard"<dd>The wildcard characters <code>.</code>, <code>*</code> and <code>?</code> are replaced
with wildcards that are appropriate for a regular expression.
For example:
<pre class="example"> regexptranslate ("wildcard", "*.m")
⇒ ".*\.m"
</pre>
<br><dt>"escape"<dd>The characters <code>$.?[]</code>, that have special meaning for regular
expressions are escaped so that they are treated literally. For example:
<pre class="example"> regexptranslate ("escape", "12.5")
⇒ "12\.5"
</pre>
</dl>
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<p class="noindent"><strong>See also:</strong> <a href="doc_002dregexp.html#doc_002dregexp">regexp</a>, <a href="doc_002dregexpi.html#doc_002dregexpi">regexpi</a>, <a href="doc_002dregexprep.html#doc_002dregexprep">regexprep</a>.
</p></blockquote></div>
</body></html>
