MATLAB - Passing a string to a function and loading appropriate data file

Question

I have a data file dataFile.mat that has two arrays A_numbers and B_numbers.

I want to write a script that takes gets the data from either A_numbers or B_numbers. I do not want to use numbers - I need to keep them as strings.

How can I do the following, where arrayName can be either A or B?

function[] = getData('arrayName')
   importedData = load('dataFile')
   result = importedData.arrayName_numbers
   save 'resultData.mat'

kabdulla · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-02 06:26:07Z

1

Assuming you want your function to load all variables saved in dataFile.mat which is in the current working directory, and then save only the variable whose name is stored in the string arrayName "_numbers" into a new file resultsData.mat, the following should do it:

function [] = getData( arrayName )

load('dataFile');
save('resultData.mat', [arrayName '_numbers']);

end

Testing it:

A_numbers = ones(3,1);
B_numbers = ones(3,1).*42;
save('dataFile.mat');

getData('B');

This should result in array B_numbers being stored in the current working directory in file resultData.mat

edited Sep 2, 2016 at 6:26

answered Sep 2, 2016 at 5:26

kabdulla

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2 Comments

user1936752 Over a year ago

Thanks! I realized that my MWE was slightly incorrect - the variable under which the data is stored is of the form A_numbers and B_numbers. So I want to use the input which is either A or B to decide whether to look at A_numbers or B_numbers

kabdulla Over a year ago

This only requires a trivial change to the example... you need to concatenate the string "_numbers" as I've done in the updated example.

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