Really! fprintf cell error

function []=printresults2file(shape)

fid=fopen('ChangyuLiu.txt','wt');

fprintf(fid, 'The number of entered objects was %d \n', size(shape,1));
fprintf(fid,'%s \t\t %s \t\t %s \t\t %s\n','No.','ID','Color','Area');
for i=1:size(shape,1)
    fprintf(fid, '%d %s %s %f',shape{i,:});
    fprintf('\n');
end
fclose(fid);
end

This is a sub-function I used to output a table in .txt file. However, the error kept pumping up as

Error using fprintf
Function is not defined for 'cell' inputs.

I wonder what's causing the problem.

[James Tursa]

What is in shape, specifically what does shape{i,:} produce?

Also, is fprintf('\n') supposed to be fprintf(fid,'\n')?

[Walter Roberson]

Some of your shape{i,2} or shape{i,3} are probably cell array of character vectors instead of being directly character vectors. Or possibly shape{i,1} or shape{i,4} is a cell containing a number.

[Changyu Liu]

The shape is a cell array that is created by a while loop, which contains four columns and unknown number of rows depending on the user input.

[Walter Roberson]

Please show us

disp(shape(1,:))

[Changyu Liu]

>> disp(shape(1,:))

[1] {1×1 cell} {1×1 cell} [3.1416]

[James Tursa]

So that is your answer, two of the cell elements are themselves cells, and you can't feed those directly to fprintf.

Answer 1

[James Tursa]

What happens if you change this

fprintf(fid, '%d %s %s %f',shape{i,:});

to this

fprintf(fid, '%d %s %s %f',shape{i,1},shape{i,2}{1},shape{i,3}{1},shape{i,4});

[Changyu Liu]

Much appreciated!