How to use special characters in MATLAB (unicode playing cards)?

Hello,

I am new to MATLAB and I am making a blackjack game for a project, and for this I would like to use Unicode playing card symbols within MATLAB, however the error is coming up with:

Error: File: untitled2 Line: 1 Column: 12
Invalid text character. Check for unsupported symbol, invisible character, or
pasting of non-ASCII characters.

I am using the playing card unicode symbols from the following website (only the cards which are used in blackjack 2-10 and AJKQ): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playing_cards_in_Unicode

Can someone please explain to me how to put it into MATLAB? I have looked through the website for someone with a similar issue/solution but I could not find one.

If it is necessary I will upload my function file.

Thank you.

[Stephen23]

Here are some playing symbols

char(0x2660:0x2667) % from the "Miscellaneous Symbols" block

ans = '♠♡♢♣♤♥♦♧'

char(0x1F0A:0x1F0E) % from the "Playing Card" block (subset)

ans = 'ἊἋἌἍἎ'

Unfortunately those glyphs do not seem to be displayed correctly.

In any case, without seeing your code we do not know what you did to cause that error.

[Aditya Sajeesh]

Hello Stephen, thank you for your reply, I have attached my code above, in essence what I am trying to do is test that when the function receives two vector inputs, playerCards and dealerCards (which will be randomly generated in my full program but for this function it is just predetermined values) and outputs dispplayerCards and dispdealerCards respectively, which contain Unicode playing cards for each value within playerCards and dealerCards.

I have not completed the function yet (it won't run properly) because most of my focus has been on trying to get the Unicode cards to work. If I am not able to use these cards then I might just have to try and use what David Hill suggested as the answer or I can just randomly select a suit from char(9824:9831) and append it to the front of a number to make a "card".

[Walter Roberson]

you do not appear to have quoted any of the characters.

Answer 1

[David Hill]

I believe the only unicode support for card symbols is:

char(9824:9831)

You can build your own cards via images. Here is an example of my blackjack game:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/71349-blackjack-gui

[Aditya Sajeesh]

Hello David, thank you for your answer.

I have not studied or learned the GUI of MATLAB, is this the only way to show PNG card files in MATLAB or is there another way? If not then I think I will just append a random element from char(9824:9831) to the front of a number to make a simplified "card" which includes a suit.

[Walter Roberson]

@Aditya Sajeesh

You can imread() images -- probably into cell arrays. You would then have an axes(), and you would image() the appropriate cell array content. You would probably want to use the optional XData and YData parameters to image(), in order to position the image into the axes, which is the way that you handle multiple images in the same axes.

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

This is closer...

function [ asciioutput ] = asciiCardsFunction(playerCards, dealerCards)
    V1 = {'🂡' '🂱' '🃁' '🃑'};
    V2 = {'🂢' '🂲' '🃂' '🃒'};
    V3 = {'🂣' '🂳' '🃃' '🃓'};
    V4 = {'🂤' '🂴' '🃄' '🃔'};
    V5 = {'🂥' '🂵' '🃅' '🃕'};
    V6 = {'🂦' '🂶' '🃆' '🃖'};
    V7 = {'🂧' '🂷' '🃇' '🃗'};
    V8 = {'🂨' '🂸' '🃈' '🃘'};
    V9 = {'🂩' '🂹' '🃉' '🃙'};
    V10 = {'🂪' '🂺' '🃊' '🃚'};
    %V11 = {'🂫' '🃋'};
    %V12 = {'🂭' '🃍'};
    %V13 = {'🂮' '🃎'};
    cardVal2 = [V1, V2, V3, V4, V5, V6, V7, V8, V9, V10];
% this set of vectors stores all possible ASCII values for all card symbols
% within blackjack

dispplayerCards = [];
dispdealerCards = [];

    for i = 1:numel(playerCards)
        dispplayerCards{i} = cardVal2{playerCards(i)};
    end
    for i = 1:numel(dealerCards)
        dispdealerCards{i} = cardVal2{dealerCards(i)};
    end

    asciioutput = [dispplayerCards{:};dispdealerCards{:}];

end

[Walter Roberson]

In practice it does not work because each of those card faces is stored as a pair of characters, and when you put those together into the character array for display to the command line, MATLAB does not have the ability to treat them as proper characters for display purposes.