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This tutorial will discuss storing different data types in variables in Matlab.

MATLAB Data Types

Data can be stored in different types such as character, string, double, integer, cell array, etc.

In Matlab, we don't have to define data types. We have to pass the value in a variable and Matlab will allocate some memory for it. When we store data in a variable, we have to use symbols.

For example, if we want to store a string in a variable, we have to use double quotes.

If we need to store a character in a variable, we have to use single quotes.

If we need to store numbers, we don't have to use any symbols.

To store cell array data, we must use curly braces. To store vectors or matrices, we must use square brackets.

We can use whosthe command to inspect the data types, classes, or variables stored in the workspace.

Let us store different data types in some variables. See the code below.

a = 100;
b = 'char';
c = "String2";
e = [1 2 3];
f = {'a',2,"s"};
whos

Output:

  Name      Size            Bytes  Class     Attributes

  a         1x1                 8  double              
  b         1x4                 8  char                
  c         1x1               150  string              
  e         1x3                24  double              
  f         1x3               472  cell    

The output shows that the variables have different data types or classes.

Matlab has other data types like categorical arrays, tables, structures, and time series.

Categorical arrays contain qualitative data whose values ​​come from a discrete set of data.

A table contains an array in a tabular form where different columns have different names and values.

Structures consist of arrays with named fields that contain data of varying types and sizes.

We can use Matlab's inbuilt functions to convert one data type or class to another data type or class.

For example, we can use num2str()the Convert a number to character array int2str()function, Convert an integer to string or character array str2num()function, Convert a string or character array to numeric array function, and Convert a string or character array to double data type str2double()function.

Let us use num2str()the function to convert numbers to characters. See the code below.

a = 100
b = num2str(a)
whos

Output:

a =

   100


b =

    '100'

  Name      Size            Bytes  Class     Attributes

  a         1x1                 8  double              
  b         1x3                 6  char                

The variable a is of class double in the output, but the converted number is now of class char.