Live editor formatted text output

How do I convert fprintf statements (from *.m) to live editor if I am interested in maintaining tab alignment and line feeds and line breaks? For example, the below line of code looks ok in *.m, but doesn't look too helpful when outputted to pdf because of the alternating lines of code and output.

company='Acme'; year=2015; volume=14.56; cost=1564;
fprintf('%s Report\n\n',company)
fprintf('Year\tVolume\tCost\n')
fprintf('%4.0f\t%0.2f\t%0.2f\n',year,volume,cost)

command window output:

Acme Report

Year  Volume  Cost
2015  14.56  1564.00|

Live editor to pdf looks like:

[Christopher Coello]

Yes something I wondered as well.

Answer 1

[Christopher Coello]

Or just simply one fprintf

company='Acme'; year=2015; volume=14.56; cost=1564;
fprintf(['%s Report\n\n',...
    'Year\tVolume\tCost\n',...
    '%4.0f\t%0.2f\t%0.2f\n'],...
    company,year,volume,cost);

Answer 2

[Christopher Coello]

Possible solution : write everything in a string using sprintf and then use disp to display it when the string is finished formatted.

ct=sprintf('%s\n| Out of bag sample -- only non night timepoints\n| mae     %0.0f MWh/h\n%s\n',repmat('-',35),mae,repmat('-',35));
disp(ct)

[Christopher Coello]

Applied to your example

company='Acme'; year=2015; volume=14.56; cost=1564;
fstr = sprintf(['%s Report\n\n',...
    'Year\tVolume\tCost\n',...
    '%4.0f\t%0.2f\t%0.2f\n'],...
    company,year,volume,cost);
disp(fstr)

Answer 3

[K.]

I know this is an old thread, but in case others come across this, I'd like to provide a workaround in addition to the two solutions provided by Christopher.

If it is possible, putting your print code into a local function would result in the texual output appearing together. E.g.

company='Acme'; year=2015; volume=14.56; cost=1564;
showReport(company, year, volume, cost);
function showReport(company, year, volume, cost)
    fprintf('%s Report\n\n',company)
    fprintf('Year\tVolume\tCost\n')
    fprintf('%4.0f\t%0.2f\t%0.2f\n',year,volume,cost)
end

[greengrass62]

Thank you for the alternatives. gg62

Answer 4

[K.]

Another solution might be to wrap the code in an if statement, as that would cause the output to be grouped. It doesn't look very nice, but if you have some other reason to put your code in an if statement, there might be times where this could be a workaround.

company='Acme'; year=2015; volume=14.56; cost=1564;
showReport = true;
if showReport
    fprintf('%s Report\n\n',company)
    fprintf('Year\tVolume\tCost\n')
    fprintf('%4.0f\t%0.2f\t%0.2f\n',year,volume,cost)
end

[greengrass62]

Thank you for the alternatives. gg62

[Frank Schumann]

Thank you @greengrass62.

Will Mathworks provide a more elgant solution ? This seems like how the Live Editor treats and displays command line output is misconceived. This should be easier. For example, simply always write under the current code block.