string choppping

Is there a way to chop off part f a sting after a certain set of characters?

If I use strtok( ) It seems to only look at the first character in the deliminter. Is there a way to make the command look at a certain string as a delimiter rather than a char?

Thanks

[William]

Here is my code so far

clc

clear

outloc = 'D:\Documents and Settings\212068586\My Documents\MATLAB'

pat = 'MATLAB';

endpoint = regexp(outloc, pat);

newstring = [];

for w = 1:length(outloc)

if w < endpoint

newstring(w) = outloc(w);

end

disp(newstring)

end

I am getting a boatload of nnumbers and am wondering if this is ascii or something??

Thanks

[Walter Roberson]

Initialize with newstring = '';

Answer 1

[Fangjun Jiang]

Not sure what your "chopping" try to achieve, could the fileparts() function help you task?

>> [PathStr,Name,Ext]=fileparts(outloc)
  PathStr =
  D:\Documents and Settings\21286\My Documents
  Name =
  MATLAB
  Ext =
       ''

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

As you are chopping, you could use strfind to get the index (watch out for multiple occurrences) and then use straight indexing.

Answer 3

[Fangjun Jiang]

help strrep
help regexp
help regexprep

If you provide an example, many expert would be eager to try their regular expression skills.

Answer 4

[Andrew Newell]

token = strtok(str, delimiter)

[Walter Roberson]

Nope. "If the delimiter input specifies more than one character, MATLAB treats each character as a separate delimiter; it does not treat the multiple characters as a delimiting string"

[Andrew Newell]

How dare MATLAB conflict with my personal reality? However, the source code for STRTOK would make a good starting point for creating a function that handles longer delimiters.

Answer 5

[William]

The string I am trying to chop up is this:

>> outloc = 'D:\Documents and Settings\21286\My Documents\MATLAB'

I'd like to be able to chop it off right before "\MATLAB" as it turns out there are more than one 's\' instances within the string.

[Fangjun Jiang]

You shall explain what is your need for the "chopping". Giving a path string and get the lowest folder name? If that is the case, fileparts() would be the best. This outloc is just an example, right? There are many ways to do it. For example:

regexprep(outloc,'.+\\','')

Answer 6

[Gerd]

Hi William,

if you use

 str = outloc(strfind(outloc,'\MATLAB'):end)

you will get

str = \MATLAB

Gerd

Answer 7

[William]

Here is my function:

function newstring = stringchopeer(stringinput, pat) % The purpose of this m file is to chop the ends off strings % the "pat" is the beginning of the area in which we would like to see % chopped

%Example: %pat = 'MATLAB'; %stringinput = 'D:\Documents and Settings\212068586\My Documents\MATLAB'

endpoint = regexp(stringinput, pat); newstring = []; for w = 1:length(stringinput) if w < endpoint newstring(w) = stringinput(w); end

end disp(char(newstring))

It works but I think it outputs ascii at the same time????

Thanks

Bill

[Fangjun Jiang]

Bill, would newstring=regexprep(stringinput,[pat,'.*'],'') work for your task?