MATLAB Application Program Interface Reference

True if mxArray is numeric or a string

#include "matrix.h"
bool mxIsNumeric(const mxArray *array_ptr);

Arguments

array_ptr

Pointer to an mxArray.

Returns

True if the array's storage type is

mxDOUBLE_ARRAY
mxSPARSE_ARRAY
mxFLOAT_ARRAY
mxINT8_ARRAY
mxUINT8_ARRAY
mxINT16_ARRAY
mxUINT16_ARRAY
mxINT32_ARRAY
mxUINT32_ARRAY

Returns False if the array's storage type is

mxCELL_ARRAY
mxCHARACTER_ARRAY
mxSTRUCTURE_ARRAY

Description

Call mxIsNumeric to determine if the specified array contains numeric data. If the specified array is a cell or a structure, then mxIsNumeric returns False. Otherwise, mxIsNumeric returns True.

Call mxGetClassID to determine the exact storage type.

Note that mxIsNumeric behaves somewhat differently in MATLAB 5 than in MATLAB 4. MATLAB 4 distinguished between string data and numeric data; therefore, the MATLAB 4 mxIsNumeric returned false if the specified array held string data. By contrast, the MATLAB 5 mxIsNumeric does not distinguish between string data and numeric data; MATLAB 5 typically stores strings inside an array having one of the integer types. Therefore, the MATLAB 5 mxIsNumeric returns True if the specified array contains a string.