Converting decimal to Roman numerals using MATLAB

Question

I have written a MATLAB function that converts decimals into Roman numerals.

function ans = dec2rom(z)
d = [ 1000, 900, 500, 400, 100, 90, 50, 40, 10, 9, 5, 4, 1];
c =  {'M', 'CM', 'D', 'CD', 'C', 'XC', 'L', 'XL', 'X', 'IX', 'V', 'IV', 'I'};
[];
for ii = 1:numel(d)
    if z >= d(ii)    
        ans = [ans,repmat(c{ii},1,fix(z/d(ii)))];
        z = rem(z,d(ii));
    end
end

Answer 1

Your use of ans is very difficult to understand, it took me 5 minutes reading the lines to understand what []; really does and why it is necessary.

function r = dec2rom(z)
d = [ 1000, 900, 500, 400, 100, 90, 50, 40, 10, 9, 5, 4, 1];
c =  {'M', 'CM', 'D', 'CD', 'C', 'XC', 'L', 'XL', 'X', 'IX', 'V', 'IV', 'I'};
r='';
for ii = 1:numel(d)
    if z >= d(ii)    
        r = [r,repmat(c{ii},1,fix(z/d(ii)))];
        z = rem(z,d(ii));
    end
end

/second version following the discussion to the other answer:

function r = dec2rom(z)

t={ 1000, 900, 500,  400, 100,   90,  50,   40,  10,    9,   5,    4,   1;
    'M', 'CM', 'D', 'CD', 'C', 'XC', 'L', 'XL', 'X', 'IX', 'V', 'IV', 'I'};
r='';
for ii = t
    num = ii{1};
    symb = ii{2};
    r = [r,repmat(symb,1,fix(z/num))];
    z = rem(z,num);
end

Now having the chars and numbers aligned in a data structure and using a simplified for loop.

Answer 2

I fully agree with what Daniel said.

A few notes:

• actually you can get rid of the if inside the for loop. (then you just have a repmat(,,0) - but it makes things easier to read and often gives a little speed bump.

• it would be a good idea to check the input number is >0 and maybe have a warning for rational z.

• typically I prefer related numbers to be stored together - it makes things way easier to read and debug.

think something like

romlist = {{1000,'M'}, {500,'D'},...}

This allows for the index to completely disapper, and you don't need to worry about indexes at all.

for i=romlist
    num = i{1}{1}
    symb = i{1}{2}
end