Help in Syntax of Eval and Sprintf

Hi,

I want to run the following expression:

*X = fts2mat(ESP('01-Jan-97::31-Dec-2012'))*

The above statemement works fine. ESP is my financial time seris(fts) container. I am getting the desired results in X.

But now I wish the dates to be passed from a cell array of date strings I have as mydate1{} and mydate2{} in place of the datestrings given in the first statement. I think it can be done via

*eval(sprintf(fts2mat(ESP('mydate1''::''mydate2'))));*

But the above gives error.

Help will be highly appreciated.

Regards,

AMD.

Answer 1

[ChristianW]

Y = cell(size(mydate1)); % preallocate
for k = 1:length(mydate1)
    str = [mydate1{k} '::' mydate2{k}]; % Date String Range
    % str = sprintf('%s::%s',mydate1{k},mydate2{k}); % Alternative

    Y{k} = fts2mat(EPS(str)); % output saved in cell Y
end

[ARS]

Thanks a lot.

Can you please explain this: str = sprintf('%s::%s',mydate1{k},mydate2{k});

I mean why can't it be

str = sprintf(mydate1{k},'%s::%s',mydate2{k});

Is there any order to follow? like.,,the operator :: needs to be in the start? but it is evaluated in the middle actually.

Regards

AMD.

[ChristianW]

doc sprintf

An example:

sprintf('answer=%d',3)        % ans = 'answer=3'
sprintf('%d is the answer',3) % ans = '3 is the answer'

The Symbol %d determines where the variable (3) is placed in the string. Same with %s, s announces that the variable is a string.

sprintf('answer=%s','HELLO')
sprintf('%s is the answer','HELLO')