Why does NUM2STR function not honor the default format "%11.4g" in case of large numbers in MATLAB 7.0.4 (R14SP2)?

When I invoke NUM2STR for very large numbers it does not honor the default format which is "%11.4g". Here is the code to reproduce this issue:

x =1e20/3;

num2str(x)

This produces an output:

 33333333333333332000

where as the output should be

3.33e+19

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

This is an omission in the MATLAB 7.0.4 (R14SP2) documentation for NUM2STR. The documentation should read as follows:

" If the input array is integer-valued, NUM2STR returns the exact string

representation of that integer. The term integer-valued includes large

floating-point numbers that lose precision due to limitations of the hardware"

This has been corrected in the documentation.