indexing string in function

I have a function that i want to return the first and last word from a string. so for example firstAndLast('matlab') should give me (m,b), however i am only able to get the first letter from this function?

   function [first,last] = firstAndLast(instring)
   first=instring(1);
   last=instring(length(instring));
   end

[Stephen23]

Your question is not clear: you write that you "want to return the first and last word from a string", but then your example seems to return the first and last letters: "firstAndLast('matlab') should give me (m,b)"

Which do you really want: the letters (like your example), or the words (like your explanation) ?

[Ian Tee]

opps sorry, to clarify i would enter the word and input it as a string in the function. Therefore i would like to extract the first and last input of the string.

[Stephen23]

What does "extract the first and last input of the string" mean ?

Do you want the first and last letters, or words ?

[Ian Tee]

letters

[Stephen23]

This is what your code does: I suspect that the problem is that were calling your function with only one output, instead of the two that it requires. In any case, in my answer I gave you a simpler way of doing this.

[Ian Tee]

Thank you very much :) , turns out calling it was the problem.

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

Words

>> C = regexp('the quick brown fox','\S+','match');
>> C([1,end])
ans = 
    'the'    'fox'

Letters

>> fun = @(s)s([1,end]);
>> fun('matlab')
ans =
mb