Displaying MATLAB tables wrapped

I only starting using the MATLAB datatype, table, a few years ago but have always been annoyed that when I display a table in MATLAB, if you have many fields, the display runs off the right side of the command window display and you have to scroll right to see other columns (other fields). I recently had to step back to MATLAB 2014 in a specific setting and starting using tables in that envronment as well. The function, head did not exist back then but I could do something similar with:

disp(TBL(1:6,:));

And wouldn't you know it,the display actually wrapped at the end of the command window such that I did not have to scroll to the right to see what I needed ... I only needed to scroll up and down. With no success, I have searched and searched the settings for a switch to make table display wrap. Does anyone know if there is a setting that wraps table display? Thanks, Dan

[dpb]

I don't think there is such a setting, no.

The closest I think you could come without writing code would be something like your above, but

disp(TBL{1:N,:})

and that has two significant limitations--

1. All variables have to be of the same type/size so can be catenated into an array, and
2. Lose the table variable headings.

But, there's no user control over the table output format other than for the individual values that follow the global setting as set by format command/function.

In general, in practice I've found that generally am only interested in a subset of variables so what I tend to do is to define a subset array of column indices/variable names and use it instead to only display those of current interest. That doesn't help if more than what will fit on the monitor are actually of interest/needed, of course.

[Catalytic]

Why is scrolling up and down better than scrolling left to right? Generally, computer monitors are wider than they are tall, so you will have to do more up-down scrolling for wrapped output than unwrapped.

[Dan]

Given the wrapped display, with a limited number of rows shown, i can survey far more variables simultaneously with the wrapped display format (see Matt J's response below for an example of a wrapped display).

Answer 1

[Matt J]

One possibility,

TBL=array2table(rand(4,12));

wrapit(TBL)

     Var1       Var2       Var3        Var4       Var5       Var6        Var7  
    _______    _______    _______    ________    _______    _______    ________

    0.79956    0.92891    0.75922    0.021847    0.42395    0.84367     0.94405
    0.63505    0.18978    0.26817     0.51076    0.10941     0.4028    0.068908
    0.11504    0.61899    0.22835     0.75201    0.89684    0.64857     0.47912
    0.18127    0.16373    0.89018     0.89885    0.63307    0.54857     0.63189

      Var8        Var9       Var10       Var11      Var12 
    ________    ________    ________    _______    _______

    0.033257     0.46148     0.22872    0.98722    0.50879
    0.077581     0.92888      0.7676    0.35275    0.87881
     0.37961     0.54332      0.7974    0.68836    0.21009
     0.57671    0.061872    0.015807     0.2225    0.42195

function wrapit(T,ncols)

  if nargin<2, ncols=7; end

   M=ceil(width(T)/ncols);

   for i=1:M
    k=min(ncols,width(T));
    t=T(:,1:k); T(:,1:k)=[];
    disp(t)
   end

end

[Dan]

Thanks, MattJ, a good first cut ... but given the dynamic nature of all the different datatypes, especially tables within tables, which I do use, I'm not sure how useful this will be. I hope the Mathworks will consider going back to the old display option as a preference.

[dpb]

It (disp) will adhere to the global Preferences setting for "Wrap Variables", but it wraps every line of the table rather than keeping rows together so they intermix...