Matrices of String Input

Enter MATLAB strings surrounded by single quotes ('string').

Strings are stored as character arrays, one ASCII character per element. Thus, the date string

DateString = '9/16/2001'

is actually a 1-by-9 vector. Strings making up the rows of a matrix or vector all must have the same length. To enter several date strings, therefore, use a column vector and be sure all strings are the same length. Fill in with spaces or zeros. For example, to create a vector of dates corresponding to irregular cash flows

DateFields = ['01/12/2001'
              '02/14/2001'
              '03/03/2001'
              '06/14/2001'
              '12/01/2001'];

DateFields actually becomes a 5-by-10 character array.

Don't mix numbers and strings in a matrix. If you do, MATLAB treats all entries as characters. For example,

Item = [83  90  99 '14-Sep-1999']

becomes a 1-by-14 character array, not a 1-by-4 vector, and it contains

Item =

SZc14-Sep-1999

http://www.mathworks.com/help/toolbox/finance/f2-1000003.html