How to delete last characters of a string

I'm trying to delete the last characters from a string, here i try to delete "-4":

name = "Motor 315S-4"
name2 = name(1:end-2)

The above just returns "Name = 1x0 empty string array

Another method I've tried is to keep the first characters, here I try to keep "Motor 315"

name = "Motor 315S-4"
name2 = name(1:9)

But that results in error: "Index exceeds the number of array elements (1)

Are there other means of doing this?

These are the methods I've been able to find, and I need both functionalities. I use the strings for data presentation like:

display = name + " is tested " + testCount + " times";

As I understand I'm locked to a string because of this (character array not possible)?

Answer 1

[Daniel Pollard]

What happens if you replace

name = "Motor 315S-4"

with

name = 'Motor 315S-4'

and try

name2 = name(1:end-2)?

Based off this previous answer.

[Kasper Buchardt]

name = 'motor 315S-4'
name = name2(1:end-2)

Returns 'motor 315S', and it seems to work in a seperate .mlx document. However, when I implement it in my own .mlx document

final(1).name = 'motor 132S1'
name = final(1).name(1:end-2)

results in empty cell array

The variable is imported from an excel document into a table as:

opts.VariableTypes = ["char"...  % changed from "string"

[Kasper Buchardt]

For some reason it works when I arrange it like this:

name = final(h).name
name = name(1:end-2)

Seems a bit redundant, but I'm just glad to get it working.

Thanks Daniel

[Kasper Buchardt]

But can it be true there is no way of doing the same with a string? All the answers I've found is for char

[Daniel Pollard]

Glad I could help, please accept the answer so that other users know that it worked.

I've done a bit of searching, and the only way that I can find to change a string (rather than char) is with strrep, which I don't think does what you're after. Maybe someone else could add to the discussion though.

[Stephen23]

"But can it be true there is no way of doing the same with a string? All the answers I've found is for char"

name = "Motor 315S-4"

name = "Motor 315S-4"

name{1}(end-1:end) = []

name = "Motor 315S"

How to access string arrays is explained in the MATLAB documentation:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_prog/create-string-arrays.html#CreateAndWorkWithStringArraysExample-4

Answer 2

[Malte Schmick]

Came across your question in my search for the same answer. For those similar to me, 4 years after the original post, here a working solution:

Matlab differentiates between strings and character vectors. It provides a lot of string-specific functions, two of which you can use here

strlength(String) and extractBefore(String,Pos)

For the above example, this command

name2=extractBefore(name,strlength(name))

would assign all but the last letter of string "name" to "name2", because 'extractBefore' ignores all characters after and including "Pos".

Hope that helps!