PASTE copies the content of the clipboard to a variable; creates a
string, a cell array, or a numerical array, depending on content.
Usage:
x = paste;
x = paste(dec,sep,lf);
The program will try to create an array. For this to succeed, the
material that is passed from the clipboard must be a tab delimited array,
such as produced by Excel's copy command. If the content does not have
this structure, the program simply returns a string. If the content is an
array, x will be a numerical array if all its components qualify as
numerical. If not, it will be a cell array.
Optional arguments:
dec Single character that indicates the decimal separator. Default is
the period ('.').
sep Single character that indicates how horizontal neigbors of a
matrix or cell array are separated. Default is the tabulator code
(char 9).
lf Single character that indicates how rows are separated.(lf stands
for line feed). Default is the line feed code (char 10).
Examples:
1) If the clipboard contains 'George's job is to chop wood.', then
x = paste produces x = 'George's job is to chop wood.'
2) If the content of the clipboard is a simple text with multiple lines
(copied from Notepad or Word or similar), then x = paste produces a
cell array with one column and one row per line of the input so each
line of text will be separated in different cells. For example, if you
copy the follwing text from some other program,
Manche meinen lechts und rinks kann man nicht velwechsern.
Werch ein Illtum!
then, in Matlab, x = paste produces a 2x1 cell array with
x{1} = 'Manche meinen lechts und rinks kann man nicht velwechsern.'
x{2} = 'Werch ein Illtum!'
[Note: x = clipboard('copy') would produce just a string in this case,
not an array of stringcells, so choose the code that is most useful for
your purpose.]
3) However, if your text contains an equal number of tabs on each line,
for instance because you've copied something like this from Word,
1 -> item 1
2 -> item 2
3 -> item 3
where -> denotes TABs, then x = paste produces a 3x2 cell array,
x =
[1] 'item 1'
[2] 'item 2'
[3] 'item 3'
4) If the clipboard contains an array of cells, e.g.
1 2 3
4 5 6
for instance by copying these six cells from an Excel spreadsheet,
then x = paste makes a 2x3 array of doubles with the same content.
The same is true if there are NaN cells. So if the Excel excerpt was
1 2 3
4 #N/A 6
then x =
1 2 3
4 NaN 6
5) If the cell collection in the clipboard is
A 1.3 NaN
then x will not be a numerical array, but a 1x3 cell array, with
x =
'A' [1.3000] [NaN]
so x{1} is a string, but x{2} and x{3} are doubles.
6) If the clipboard contains '1,2', then x=paste with no arguments will
be 12 (because Matlabs str2double('1,2') interprets this as the number
12). However, x=paste(',') will return 1.2
7) If the clipboard contains '1,2 & 100', then x=paste with no arguments
will return just the string '1,2 & 100'. x=paste(',','&'), on the
other hand, will return a numerical array [1.2, 100].
Here is a practical example:
----------------------------
In Excel, select your data, say, a sample of observations organized in
a few columns. Place them into the clipboard with Ctrl-C.
Now switch to Matlab and say
x = paste;
This puts the data that you copied in Excel into a variable x in
Matlab's workspace.
Next, you can analyze the data. For instance, compute the principal
components (an analysis that is not readily available in Excel), and
push the result back into the clipboard,
[c,s] = princomp(x);
copy(s)
Now, back in Excel, you can paste the result into your spreadsheet with
Ctrl-V.
This program was selected 'Pick of the Week' on March 7, 2014. :-)
Author : Yvan Lengwiler
Release: 1.51
Date : 2014-03-19
See also COPY, CLIPBOARD