ellipsis, ...

Line continuation

Syntax

...

Description

The ellipsis symbol (...) continues the current command on the next line. If three or more periods occur before the end of a line, then MATLAB^® ignores the rest of the line and continues to the next line. This behavior effectively makes a comment out of anything on the current line that follows the three periods.

MATLAB interprets the ellipsis as a space character. Therefore, multi-line commands must be valid as a single line with the ellipsis replaced by a space character.

Examples

Multi-Line Function Call

Continue a function call on the next line.

vname = "Var1";
value = 10;
sprintf(["The current value " + ...
    "of %s is %d"],vname,value)

ans = 
"The current value of Var1 is 10"

Long Line of Text

Break a character vector over multiple lines and concatenate the lines together.

S = ['If three or more periods occur before the ' ...
    'end of a line, then the rest of that line is ' ...
    'ignored and MATLAB continues to the next line'];

Comment One Line

To comment out one line in a multi-line command, use ... at the beginning of the line to ensure that the command remains complete. If you use % to comment out a line, the command produces an error.

y = 1 + ...
    2 + ...
  % 3 + ...
    4

However, this code runs properly because the third line does not produce a gap in the command.

y = 1 + ...
    2 + ...
... 3 +
    4

y = 
7

Version History

Introduced before R2006a