select string by condition

if i want select value by condition i can write

(a==1)*3+(a~=1)*5

when a will get 3 if a is 1 or 5 if not.

can i do somthing like this but the result is a string. foe example:

(a==1)*'Good'+(a~=1)*'bad'

when a will be 1 i will get 'good' else i will get 'bed'

i want it for sprintf. i want write a message that if a value is lower from 0 it will write 'loss' and if it higher it write 'profit'

sprintf('Are %s is %d', (v<0)loss (v>0)profit, v)

Answer 1

[Geoff Hayes]

Yona - I think that the closest you can get to doing what you want is to create an array of strings as

 msgs = {'loss','profit'};

then access the one you want based on whether v is positive or negative

 sprintf('Our %s is %d', msgs{(v>0)+1}, v)

Try the above and see what happens!

[Yona]

good way. I didn't think about place in cell by condition