How to use "extractBetween" function with FEVAL in TLC code in R2016b?

I would like to use the "extractBetween" function in TLC code in R2016b as follows:

%assign test = FEVAL("extractBetween","ABCDSD","A","D")

Doing this I see the error:

"Only double and character arrays can be converted from MATLAB to TLC. This can occur if the MATLAB function does not return a value (see %matlab)"

While using similar other functions in TLC files they are working fine, e.g.

FEVAL("eraseBetween",outport_1,"<",">")

How to workaround this error message?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

The issue is currently caused by the behavior of the extractBetween function in R2016b which outputs a string even if you input only character array inputs.

This behavior was changed to the expected one in R2017a, where the input data type is equal to the output data type. That means in this release and later the below workaround is not needed and the error is not shown.

As a workaround, you need a function which will output a character array instead of a string in R2016b, if you cannot upgrade your MATLAB release.

There a several possible solutions, for example:

Use the extractBetween function, with a wrapper function which could look like the following:

function [ newStr ] = extractBetweenTLC(str,startPat,endPat)
newStr = extractBetween(str,startPat,endPat);
newStr = char(newStr);
end

In the TLC file you can the use it as follows:

%assign test2 = FEVAL("extractBetweenTLC","ABCDSD","A","D")

Another solution would be to use regular expressions instead of the extractBetween function:\n

%assign test = FEVAL("regexp","ABCDSD","(?<=A)(.*?)(?=D)","match","once")