Include variables in matlab user input

Hi guys, Basically I just want to use a variable that I've already declared when asking a user for input.

a= input('Pick a letter') b= input('Now ask something about the letter' a '? ')

Something along those lines. Even if I have to convert 'a' to another format after its found would be fine. I've looked over the internet and matlabs help for input a fair bit but can't find anything. Does anyone know if this is possible? Thanks in advance Josh

Answer 1

[Matt Fig]

Is this what you are after?

a = input('Pick a letter: ','s');
b = input(['Now ask something about the letter ', a, '? '],'s');

[Josh]

Thanks heaps man, works perfect. Just out of curiosity am I just an idiot or is that included somewhere in matlab help?

[Matt Fig]

Is what included? You mean using the 's' in INPUT? I suspect it is in the help for the INPUT function.

help input

Or did you mean using the [] to concatenate? Search the doc for concatenate:

docsearch('concatenate')

That operator will show up somewhere in there...

[Josh]

Yeah sorry I just meant using the comma's around the variable in between the apostrophes,that's the bit I didn't know, but I guess that's just general coding notation. And yep the concatenation bit.

Thanks for all your help!

[Walter Roberson]

The commas aren't actually needed in that context, and some people would leave them out. I find it easier to read when the commas are there, and using the commas can prevent some parsing problems (especially about whether a "-" indicates subtraction or unary minus). I usually only omit the commas if I am creating a pure list of numbers such as [1 3 5 7 9]

[Josh]

Oh okay, so it's not the commas at all its the square brackets doing the concatenating. Well I've learnt lots today lol. Thanks for the help guys

[Matt Fig]

Yes, I almost always use commas to separate values unless it is a pure list of non-negative numbers.

[2,-3,4,-6,7]

['This ','string ','is built from ','sub-strings.']

but only for non-negative integers

[3 4 5 6 7]

Also, note the other: [1;2;3;4;5]