Display Text Without Formatting

The following string displays in the command window formatted as a hyperlink. How do I display the entire contents of str without formatting?

>> str = '<test TEST>'
str =
TEST

[Daniel Shub]

This is a really great question and MATLAB needs a way to turn off string formatting. Sometimes we want to know what is in our strings and not have them look pretty.

[Jonathan]

I am going with the following until a better and/or permanent solution is presented. Thanks to a Mathworker for motivating this idea!

str = '<test TEST>';
str = strrep(str, '=', sprintf('= \b'));
disp(str);    % built-in
display(str); % built-in

Answer 1

[Andrew Newell]

You can replace all the occurrences of href by HREF for display:

str = {'<test TEST1>';'<test TEST2>'};
dispStr = regexprep(str,'href','HREF');
disp(dispStr)

[Jonathan]

Thank you.

[Jan]

STRREP is faster than REGEXPREP.

Answer 2

[Daniel Shub]

What about corrupting the string with spaces and backspaces ...

str = '<test TEST>';
showstr = @(str)([sprintf('%c \b', str), sprintf('\n')]);
showstr(str)

This means that you can see all the content of your string without any formating (including formatting strings like \n) and don't have to guess what MATLAB is going to do.

[Jonathan]

I accepted too soon. I like this answer the best. It is the most general.

This is an awkward situation to begin with. No wonder it requires such awkward code to circumvent. I would rather have BOTH: (1) a display function that does not format, and (2) a global setting to turn off all display formatting.

Thank you for this insightful solution, Daniel.

Jonathan

[Daniel Shub]

Sorry for not responding sooner. See my follow up answer which gives 1 and 2. Also, consider voting for answers that you think are helpful by clicking the triangle.

Answer 3

[Thomas]

How about this one

 fprintf('%c \b',length(str)-1,str)

Output

<test TEST>

[Jonathan]

This is an elegant improvement over Daniel's answer. Thank you.

Answer 4

[Daniel Shub]

Can anyone eliminate the use of eval?

In a comment to my other answer, Jonathan said "I would rather have BOTH: (1) a display function that does not format, and (2) a global setting to turn off all display formatting." This can be achieved for strings with a little bit of work.

1. Create a folder @char and add it to the MATLAB path

2. Inside @char add the following two functions (with appropriate names)

function disp(X)
  if ischar(X) && ~isempty(getappdata(0, 'FormatString')) && ~getappdata(0, 'FormatString')
    X = [sprintf('%c \b', X), sprintf('\n')];
  end
  builtin('disp', X);
end

function display(X)
  if ischar(X) && ~isempty(getappdata(0, 'FormatString')) && ~getappdata(0, 'FormatString')
    X = [sprintf('%c \b', X), sprintf('\n')];
  end
  eval([inputname(1), ' = X;']);
  eval(['builtin(''display'', ', inputname(1), ');']);
end

You can then toggle the formating as follows:

>> setappdata(0, 'FormatString', []);
>> str = '<test TEST>'
TEST
>> setappdata(0, 'FormatString', true);
>> str = '<test TEST>'
TEST
>> setappdata(0, 'FormatString', false);
>> str = '<test TEST>'
<test TEST>

[Jonathan]

This solution generally works, and I implemented a variation that eliminates the calls to eval. However, if I follow your instructions, put a breakpoint in the display function, and hover over X, it displays a '\b' after each character.

Do you know which function is called when you hover over a variable?

[Oleg Komarov]

@Jonathan: "and I implemented a variation that eliminates the calls to eval." Would you share that solution?

[Daniel Shub]

@Jonathan, 1) can you share your EVAL free solution, 2) please ask the hover question as a new question, 3) please consider voting for some of the answers that you like.

[Jonathan]

1)

function display(varargin)
  if isequal(get(0, 'FormatSpacing'), 'compact')
    disp([inputname(1) ' =']);
    disp(varargin{1});
  else
    disp(' ');
    disp([inputname(1) ' =']);
    disp(' ');
    disp(varargin{1});
  end
end

This calls disp without duplicating its code. It's not as fast as the built-in display, but faster than using eval - especially using it twice. I considered not having a display implementation at all. The problem is the built-in display function calls the built-in disp function without checking for an override.

2) I am disinclined to ask the hover question separately. No variation on this page is a general solution. Solving the hover problem would still not be a general solution. Here are some related thoughts for those who desire more functionality.

If I'm working from the command line only, I can call s = dbstack();, then include isempty(s) in the if check - both inside the disp code above. This gives command line text-without-formatting without having a hover problem. This is not a general solution to the hover problem, though.

The @char folder approach does not affect text formatting when displaying a string in a struct or cell array. This is still a problem to be handled for any general solution.

Replacing the disp.m file in the Matlab toolbox with the code above does not affect the code that is executed on calling disp(). I mention this for those who are curious, not as a suggested avenue of investigation.

3) Thank you for reminding me of this option.

Answer 5

[Thomas]

The only way I could think of is:

fprintf('< \b');fprintf('a href="test">TEST</a>')

Outputis:

<test TEST>

[Jonathan]

I see how this produces the result for this small example. The larger problem is that I have multiple hyperlinks stored in 'str'. I want to see all of the unformatted content of 'str' all at once.