fprintf or fwrite non ASCII characters

Hi everyone,

I am trying to write some strings on a text but some of them contain σ and μ and they are not written correctly in my file when I use either fprintf or fwrite. I tried also to open my file (fopen) with different encondings but nothing changed. Below you find my most significant attempts:

SheetName = 'example';
text_file = fopen(strcat(SheetName, '.txt'), 'w+','n','windows-1253');

fprintf(text_file,'%c', 'σ');               % prints ?
fprintf(text_file,'%s', char(963));         % prints ó
fprintf(text_file, '\x03c3');               % prints ó

fwrite(text_file, 'σ');                     % prints ?
fwrite(text_file, char(963));               % prints ÿ

If I don't put the encoding 'windows-1253' I get even worse results: second and third line print a small square.

I have also read that it could depend on my OS but honestly I don't get why. Anyway, I have Windows 10 Pro.

Could you help me out with this? Thanks in advance!

[Stephen23]

How are you checking the file content? It works for me:

fid = fopen('test.txt','wt');
fprintf(fid,'%c', 'σ');
fprintf(fid,'%s', char(963));
fprintf(fid, '\x03c3');
fwrite(fid, 'σ');
fwrite(fid, char(963));
fclose(fid);
type test.txt

σσσσσ

double(fileread('test.txt'))

ans = 1×5

963 963 963 963 963

So far everything is working as expected. But we have no idea what tool/app you are using to check the file content.

[Daniele Venanzetti]

Hi @Stephen Cobeldick,

I tried to run also your script and this is what I see by looking at the notepad, notepad++ and matlab editor:

Thank you for the help!

[Stephen23]

@Daniele Venanzetti: please show the ouput of the two commands that I used to check the file content.

[Daniele Venanzetti]

@Stephen Cobeldick

This is what I see when I run type and double(fileread('test.txt')):

[Stephen23]

@Daniele Venanzetti: what OS are you using?

Perhaps you could try using these FOPEN options:

fopen('test.txt','w','n','UTF-8')

[Daniele Venanzetti]

@Stephen Cobeldick

I have Windows 10 Pro. I tried your fopen options and I got this:

Answer 1

[Constantino Carlos Reyes-Aldasoro]

Have you tried using TeX formatting? I.e. \alpha \sigma \mu

https://uk.mathworks.com/help/matlab/creating_plots/greek-letters-and-special-characters-in-graph-text.html

[Daniele Venanzetti]

Hi @Constantino Carlos Reyes-Aldasoro,

I had already tried but it doesn't work.

[Constantino Carlos Reyes-Aldasoro]

Have you tried using ascii values? e.g.

strcat('a=',181)

ans = 'a=µ'

[Daniele Venanzetti]

Hi @Constantino Carlos Reyes-Aldasoro,

It works only on the command window but I need to write it in a text.