How can I save MATLAB variables to a text file?

To save your matlab variables/arrays as ascii text, there are a number of things you can do. Here are some options in order of increasing difficultly:

For small matrices, you can use the "diary" command to create a diary file, and then list the variables on this file. You can then use your text editor to manipulate the diary file at a later time. The output of the diary includes the matlab commands used during the session. To turn the diary on, you simply enter a command of the form:
```
        diary filename
```
To turn the diary off, just enter the command:
```
        diary off
```
When using this method, you have some control the output format with the "format" command. See "help format" for more details.

You can save variables using the "save" command, with the /ascii option.
For example:
```
        A = rand(4,3);
        save temp.dat A /ascii
```
creates an ASCII file called temp.dat which contains something like:
```
        0.2113  0.8096  0.4832
        0.2115  0.7496  0.4483
        0.4813  0.5896  0.4383
        0.2373  0.5654  0.1934
```
The format options are limited to either short or long floating point format with the "save" command.

Use the "fopen" and "fprintf" commands in Matlab to create your own custom format. These commands are similar to the ANSI C functions of the same name, with some extensions. Here is a simple example from "help fprintf". These statements
```
          >>  x = 0:.1:1; y = [x; exp(x)];
          >>  fid = fopen('exp.txt','w');
          >>  fprintf(fid,'%6.2f  %12.8f\n',y);
```
create a text file containing a short table of the exponential function:
```
 
            0.00    1.00000000
            0.10    1.10517092
                 ...
            1.00    2.71828183
```