Call a Python Function to Wrap Text in a Paragraph

MATLAB has equivalencies for much of the Python standard library, but not everything. For example, textwrap is a module for formatting blocks of text with carriage returns and other conveniences. MATLAB also provides a textwrap function, but it only wraps text to fit inside a UI control.

Create a paragraph of text to play with.

T = 'MATLAB(R) is a high-level language and interactive environment for numerical computation, visualization, and programming. Using MATLAB, you can analyze data, develop algorithms, and create models and applications. The language, tools, and built-in math functions enable you to explore multiple approaches and reach a solution faster than with spreadsheets or traditional programming languages, such as C/C++ or Java(TM).';

Convert a Python String to a MATLAB String

Call the textwrap.wrap function by typing the characters py. in front of the function name. Do not type import textwrap.

wrapped = py.textwrap.wrap(T);
whos wrapped

  Name         Size            Bytes  Class      Attributes

  wrapped      1x7                 8  py.list              

wrapped is a Python list, which is a list of Python strings. MATLAB shows this type as py.list.

Convert py.list to a cell array of Python strings.

wrapped = cell(wrapped);
whos wrapped

  Name         Size            Bytes  Class    Attributes

  wrapped      1x7               840  cell               

Although wrapped is a MATLAB cell array, each cell element is a Python string.

wrapped{1}

ans = 

  Python str with no properties.

    MATLAB(R) is a high-level language and interactive environment for

Convert the Python strings to MATLAB strings using the char function.

wrapped = cellfun(@char, wrapped, 'UniformOutput', false);
wrapped{1}

ans =

    'MATLAB(R) is a high-level language and interactive environment for'

Now each cell element is a MATLAB string.

Customize the Paragraph

Customize the output of the paragraph using keyword arguments.

The previous code uses the wrap convenience function, but the module provides many more options using the py.textwap.TextWrapper functionality. To use the options, call py.textwap.TextWrapper with keyword arguments described at https://docs.python.org/2/library/textwrap.html#textwrap.TextWrapper.

Create keyword arguments using the MATLAB pyargs function with a comma-separated list of name/value pairs. width formats the text to be 30 characters wide. The initial_indent and subsequent_indent keywords begin each line with the comment character, %, used by MATLAB.

tw = py.textwrap.TextWrapper(pyargs(...
    'initial_indent', '% ', ...
    'subsequent_indent', '% ', ...
    'width', int32(30)));
wrapped = wrap(tw,T);

Convert to a MATLAB argument and display the results.

wrapped = cellfun(@char, cell(wrapped), 'UniformOutput', false);
fprintf('%s\n', wrapped{:})

% MATLAB(R) is a high-level
% language and interactive
% environment for numerical
% computation, visualization,
% and programming. Using
% MATLAB, you can analyze
% data, develop algorithms,
% and create models and
% applications. The language,
% tools, and built-in math
% functions enable you to
% explore multiple approaches
% and reach a solution faster
% than with spreadsheets or
% traditional programming
% languages, such as C/C++ or
% Java(TM).

Learn More

It is sufficient to remember that Python is yet another potential source of libraries for the MATLAB user. If you want to learn about moving data between MATLAB and Python, including Python data types such as tuples and dictionaries, see Python Libraries.