Convert a decimal number to a character vector that represents its value in base 12. In this base system, the characters 'A' and 'B' represent the numbers denoted as 10 and 11 in base 10.

D = 23;
baseStr = dec2base(D,12)

baseStr = 
'1B'

Specify the number of base-12 digits that dec2base returns. If you specify more digits than are required, then dec2base pads the output with leading zeros.

D = 23;
baseStr = dec2base(D,12,6)

baseStr = 
'00001B'

If you specify fewer digits, then dec2base still returns as many digits as required to represent the input number.

baseStr = dec2base(D,12,1)

baseStr = 
'1B'

Create a numeric array.

D = [1023 122 14];

To represent the elements of D as octal, or base-8, values, use the dec2base function. Each row of baseStr corresponds to an element of D.

baseStr = dec2base(D,8)

baseStr = 3x4 char array
    '1777'
    '0172'
    '0016'

The dec2base function returns a character array padded with leading zeros. Starting in R2016b, the compose function is recommended for converting numeric arrays to octal representations. It returns a string array whose elements do not have leading zeros. To represent the elements of D as octal values, use the %o formatting operator.

hexStr = compose("%o",D)

hexStr = 1x3 string
    "1777"    "172"    "16"