fprintf problems with new lines

I am trying to make my data outputs look like the example and am about 90% of the way there but the caviat is that I can only use up to 6 fprintf commands.

If I can start a new line and complete the title block in two lines then the data can have a line each but the \n command wasn't generating a new line. I can make it kinda work by inputting all the data into one fprintf command but then I can't have the line titles in there.

clear; close all; clc

G = 9.80665;  %gravity            
D = 0.1;              
v0 = 0; %Start velocity
h0 = 38969; %start height
t0 = 0; %start time
T = 0.01;
A = 0.7; %area pre parachute
m = 118; %mass
%p = 1.2; %rho
C = 1; %drag

%% part a
v(1) = v0;     
H(1) = h0; 
t(1) = T;
n = 1;
  
% 
% vc = sqrt(2*m*g/(p*C*A))
% tc = vc/g
% hc = vc*tc
while 1                                   
    if H(n) < 1043 %break when ground is reached                     
        break 
    end
    Hkm = H(end)/1000;
    g = G*6356.766.^2/(6356.766+Hkm).^2;
    p = 1.2241*exp(-(Hkm/11.661)-(Hkm/18.192)^2+(Hkm/29.235)^3);
   vc = sqrt(2*m*g/(p*C*A));
   tc = vc/g;
   hc = vc*tc;
    
    
    
    
    if n > 26000 %50 sec parachute Drag increase                   
        A = 50;
        C = 3.17;
        
    end
   
    %a(n) = -g - D*v(n)*abs(v(n));  
    a(n) = -g*(1-v(n)^2/((vc^2)));
    %a(n) = g*(vc^2-v(n)^2)/(vc*cosh(t-t0/tc))+v0*sinh(t-t0/tc);
    
    v(n+1) = v(n) + a(n)*T;    
    %v(n+1) = vc*(v0/vc)+tanh(t-t0/tc)/(1+v0/vc*tanh(t-t0/tc)); 
    
    H(n+1) = H(n) + v(n)*T;                
    n = n+1;
    
    t(n) = n/100;
end
 


ng = n-1;           
tg = (n-1)*T;  
a(end+1)=0;
vneg = -v;
aneg = -a;
[Vmax,Tmax] = max(vneg);
Hmax=H(Tmax);

VT180 = vneg(18000);
H180 = H(18000);
VT260 = vneg(26000);
H260 = H(26000);
Tfinal = t(end);
Tmax2 = Tmax/100

%% plot jibberish

plot(t,H,'r-',Tmax2,Hmax,'bo');
xlabel('Time/sec')
ylabel('Height Kms')
yyaxis right
plot(t,vneg,'k-',180,VT180,'go',260,VT260,'mo')
hold on
xlabel('Time/sec')
ylabel('M/sec')

title('Felix Skydive')
legend('height','Vmax','Velocity','VT180','VT260')
grid on

%% print command


 
 fprintf('notes                     observed                calculated\n')
 fprintf('                     T       V      H          T       V      H\n')
 fprintf(['---------------   ----------------------   ------------------------------------','\n'])
 
 fprintf('                %6.0f    %6.4f %6.0f   %6.0f    %6.4f %6.0f        \n',t0, v0,h0,t0,v0,h0,180,79.17,7619,180,VT180,H180,260,53.19,2567,260,VT260,H260,558,0.00,1043,Tfinal,0.00,1043)

[Image Analyst]

Why do you have this weird requirement of how many fprintf() calls you can make? What's the point of that???

[Chett Manly]

It is part of the assigned task. I can't see a real world issue with using more lines.

It isn't like it is running on a Commodore 64 with limited lines of memory...

[dpb]

You can write it all in one call to fprintf if you really, really want.

I don't recomend it as coding style, but it's certainly doable.

[Chett Manly]

My problem is the \n for the first three fprintf commands wont start a new line.

In the help file the \n command is meant to do that.

If I can manage to get the first three commands on one I know how to do the rest.

[Image Analyst]

@Chett Manly, see my answer below. You need the \n inside one string, not two strings and brackets.

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

Instead of brackets and using two separate strings:

fprintf(['---------------   ----------------------   ------------------------------------','\n'])

have no brackets and put the \n inside only one format specifier string:

fprintf('---------------   ----------------------   ------------------------------------\n')

[Chett Manly]

Yeah, this will work, It is a strange constraint and I would rather have as many lines as needed but this will do as a work around. Cheers.

[dpb]

fprintf(['---------   --------------    --------------------------','\n'])

Sytlistic Comments:

1. MATLAB includes (as of R2016b) the "syntactic sugar" newline function.
2. Things like the above can be written somewhat more easily than by counting out and explicitly writing all the individual '-' characters as

fprintf([repelem('-',15) blanks(3) repelem('-',23) blanks(3) repelem('-',36) newline])

The latter form is especially useful in cases of repeated formatting fields of long records, for example a csv file of N variables might look something like

fmt=[repmat('%6.1f,',1,size(X,2)-1,1) '%6.1f' newline];
fprintf(fid,fmt,X.')

Sample usage might be--

>> X=randi(20,3)/10
X =
          1.10          1.20          1.50
          1.50          1.50          1.50
          1.50          1.90          0.70
>> fmt=[repmat('%6.1f,',1,size(X,2)-1,1) '%6.1f' newline];
>> fprintf(1,fmt,X.')
   1.1,   1.2,   1.5
   1.5,   1.5,   1.5
   1.5,   1.9,   0.7
>> 

This is still kludgy but is best one can to with the ill-conceived sequencing of the C format string that by putting the variable type string first (instead of following the well-established lead of FORTRAN) doesn't allow for a repeat field (FORMAT would allow one to write 2F6.1 instead).

Of course, for a simple csv file, there are builtin routines that will do this for you; the point of the exercise is to illustrate the use of formatting in more general terms than blind copying of characters.

In the above case of trying to reproduce a table, the spacings could have been determined and the counts computed to include the spacing in the field widths instead of counting and incorporating explicit blanks.

You can also specificy the field width and/or precision with '*' in the format string and pass them in the argument list along with the associated variable --

fprintf(1,'%*.*f',6,4,pi,9,6,exp(1)),fprintf(newline)
3.1416 2.718282
>> 

NB: here had to add the '\n' as additional output record as otherwise inside the formatting string would apply to each element and output a column instead.