How do I pass an array of strings from C# to MATLAB using MATLAB Builder NE 3.0.2 (R2009b)?

I have created a .NET component using MATLAB Builder NE product. I would like to pass an array of string from C# program to the MATLAB function in the .NET component.

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

It is possible to create a string array in C# and pass it to an MWCharArray like below:

String[] input = new String[2] {"This", "is"};

MWCharArray inputStr = new MWCharArray(input);

But unfortunately, MWCharArray sends the array of strings to MATLAB as a column vector but not as a row vector. Thus it is not very useful when we send array of strings in the above way.

So the best way to send array of strings from C# to MATLAB is by creating an MWCellArray. Please see below for a complete example on how to pass array of strings from C# to MATLAB:

Here is simple MATLAB code which takes input as a cell array and concatenates the contents of cell array with other strings:

function result = concatStringArrays(input)

strVar = ['a', 'concatenated', 'string'];

result = [input{1}, input{2}, strVar];

end

Please note that Matlab array starts at index 1 instead of 0 unlike in C#

After creating the .NET component from the above MATLAB code, the component can be used in the C# .NET application like below:

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Text;

using MathWorks.MATLAB.NET.Utility;

using MathWorks.MATLAB.NET.Arrays;

using stringArray;

namespace StringArr

{

      class Program

      {

          static void Main(string[] args)

          {

              MWCellArray inputString = null;

              MWCharArray resultString = null;

              try

              {

                  StringArray demo = new StringArray();

                  inputString = new MWCellArray(2);

                  inputString[1] = new MWCharArray("This");

                  inputString[2] = new MWCharArray("is");

                  Console.WriteLine("String input converted to pass to MATLAB .NET component is\n{0}", inputString);

                  resultString = (MWCharArray)demo.concatStringArrays(inputString);

                  Console.WriteLine("resulting string from MATLAB function is {0}", resultString);

                   Console.ReadKey();

              }

              catch (Exception exception)

              {

                  Console.WriteLine("Error: {0}", exception);

                  Console.ReadKey();

              }

          }

      }

}