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How do I add commas to numbers using fprintf?

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Hello,
How do I add commas to numbers using fprintf? My customer wants me to write out tables and have commas in the numbers to better read it. For instance, 123456789.0 would be written out as 123,456,789.0. Thanks.
Best regards,
Bill Rooker

Accepted Answer

Stephen23
Stephen23 on 8 Mar 2017
Edited: Stephen23 on 15 Sep 2023
fprintf cannot do that, but you will find several FEX submissions that can create a string with commas as thousands separators:
If you read the comments to those submissions you will also find several improvements to consider.
Another easy one-line approach:
str = ["1234567890.123456789";"-1234567890";"0"]
str = 3×1 string array
"1234567890.123456789" "-1234567890" "0"
str = regexprep(str,'(?<!\.\d*)\d{1,3}(?=(\d{3})+\>)','$&,')
str = 3×1 string array
"1,234,567,890.123456789" "-1,234,567,890" "0"
  4 Comments
Stephen23
Stephen23 on 15 Sep 2023
Edited: Stephen23 on 15 Sep 2023
The only resources I really use are the MATLAB documentation:
etc.
You can find some online tutorials etc that explain regular expression concepts** but these often are based on Perl or JavaScript or Python or whatever regular expressions (i.e. not the same details) so once you really need to know the details then the only place to look is the MATLAB documentation. Be prepared to read those pages many times.
If you want to experiment then you might find this useful:
** as well as many websites offering all kinds of automagic things with regular expressions.
Dyuman Joshi
Dyuman Joshi on 16 Sep 2023
I tried working with the documentation pages of regexp() and regexprep(), but haven't been successful with it, as they are not clear/specific enough to me and do not provide sufficient examples to understand the functionality properly.
Thank you very much for the links, I didn't know about these pages, they are what I was looking for!
I have also tried a few online tutorials, but as you mentioned, the functionality of regexp() in other languages are different than in MATLAB.
I will also look into the FEX submission you have link, it does look very extensive, but for now, I will start from the basics with the documentation pages you linked.
Once again, Thank you!

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More Answers (4)

Ted Shultz
Ted Shultz on 13 Jun 2018
you can do this in two lines. from this page : A simple way is to add this two line function:
function numOut = addComma(numIn)
jf=java.text.DecimalFormat; % comma for thousands, three decimal places
numOut= char(jf.format(numIn)); % omit "char" if you want a string out
end
Hope that helps! --ted
  5 Comments
Daven Gooden
Daven Gooden on 10 Nov 2020
@Ted Shultz: Spot on! Very clean and easy to understand/use! Thank you very mutch!

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Jim Svensson
Jim Svensson on 15 Feb 2021
I feel that in 2021 this functionality should be supported by sprintf/fprintf.
  3 Comments
Dyuman Joshi
Dyuman Joshi on 15 Sep 2023
@Jim Svensson If you want to have a functionality implemented in MATLAB, you can raise a feature request for it.
I believe you will need a strong justification to convince TMW as to why they should implement it.
Image Analyst
Image Analyst on 16 Sep 2023
It would certainly be a convenience if they had a letter to do that conversion, like p or whatever (some unused letter), like
x = 12345678.912345
fprintf('Number = %p.\n', x);
'12,345,678.912'

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Image Analyst
Image Analyst on 15 Sep 2023
See my attached utility function that inserts commas to make a string out of a number. Then in your fprintf you print the string with %s instead of %d or %f. For example:
number = 1234567;
fprintf('The number is %s.\n', CommaFormat(number));
The number is 1,234,567.

Toshiaki Takeuchi
Toshiaki Takeuchi on 14 Nov 2023
Using pattern
vec = 123456789;
txt = string(vec);
pat1 = lookBehindBoundary(digitsPattern); % (?<=\d)
pat2 = asManyOfPattern(digitsPattern(3),1); % (\d{3})+
pat3 = lookAheadBoundary(pat2+lineBoundary("end")); % (?=(\d{3})+$)
pat4 = pat1+pat3; % (?<=\d)(?=(\d{3})+$)
replace(txt,pat4,",")
ans = "123,456,789"
  1 Comment
Stephen23
Stephen23 on 14 Nov 2023
vec = 1234.56789
vec = 1.2346e+03
txt = string(vec);
pat1 = lookBehindBoundary(digitsPattern); % (?<=\d)
pat2 = asManyOfPattern(digitsPattern(3),1); % (\d{3})+
pat3 = lookAheadBoundary(pat2+lineBoundary("end")); % (?=(\d{3})+$)
pat4 = pat1+pat3; % (?<=\d)(?=(\d{3})+$)
replace(txt,pat4,",")
ans = "1234.5,679"

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