TYPEOF Determine the Type of an Argument
Section: Inspection Functions
Usage
Returns a string describing the type of an array. The syntax for its use isy = typeof(x),
The returned string is one of
-
'cell'for cell-arrays -
'struct'for structure-arrays -
'logical'for logical arrays -
'uint8'for unsigned 8-bit integers -
'int8'for signed 8-bit integers -
'uint16'for unsigned 16-bit integers -
'int16'for signed 16-bit integers -
'uint32'for unsigned 32-bit integers -
'int32'for signed 32-bit integers -
'float'for 32-bit floating point numbers -
'double'for 64-bit floating point numbers -
'complex'for complex floating point numbers with 32-bits per field -
'dcomplex'for complex floating point numbers with 64-bits per field -
'string'for string arrays
Example
The following piece of code demonstrates the output of thetypeof command for each possible type. The first example is with a simple cell array.
--> typeof({1})
ans =
cell
-->
quit
The next example uses the struct constructor to make a simple scalar struct.
--> typeof(struct('foo',3))
ans =
struct
-->
quit
The next example uses a comparison between two scalar integers to generate a scalar logical type.
--> typeof(3>5) ans = logical --> quit
For the smaller integers, and the 32-bit unsigned integer types, the typecast operations are used to generate the arguments.
--> typeof(uint8(3)) ans = uint8 --> typeof(int8(8)) ans = int8 --> typeof(uint16(3)) ans = uint16 --> typeof(int16(8)) ans = int16 --> typeof(uint32(3)) ans = uint32 --> quit
The 32-bit signed integer type is the default for integer arguments.
--> typeof(-3) ans = int32 --> typeof(8) ans = int32 --> quit
Float, double, complex and double-precision complex types can be created using the suffixes.
--> typeof(1.0f) ans = float --> typeof(1.0D) ans = double --> typeof(1.0f+i) ans = complex --> typeof(1.0D+2.0D*i) ans = dcomplex --> quit