Re: numerical values

[Przemek Klosowski]

As Ben pointed out, printf formats easily control the
number of decimal places, as shown above. It is even
possible to provide that number at runtime:

  sprintf('%7.*f', 2, 123.4567)   -->    123.46
  sprintf('%7.*f', 3, 123.4567)   -->    123.457


Limiting the total number of decimal places is trickier: the printf
formats don't seem to allow this control you could use the exponential
notation which normalizes to range [1,9) but then the numbers will
always be written in the exponent notation. You can manipulate
the resulting string, though:

    sprintf ('%f\n', 123.45678)(1:5)

Note that 

  disp (sprintf ('Three decimal places: %7.3f', 123.45678)

can be simply written as 

  printf ('Three decimal places: %7.3f\n', 123.45678)