How do I let a user choose what variable they want to assign a value to?

I am making a program where I would like it to display a list of variable names (already created inside the program) and then let the user decide which one variable they want to assign a value to (either by typing the name of the variable or by typing in some pre-set command) and then input the value to be assigned to that variable.

(To give some background this is for a unit converter program where the user would, for instance, type "feet" and then e.g. "3" and it would return what 3 feet is in metres, inches, miles, yards etc; or they could type "metres" and then e.g. "5" and it would return this value in feed, inches etc).

[Stephen23]

Letting the user dynamically select a variable name would not be a good approach:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/304528-tutorial-why-variables-should-not-be-named-dynamically-eval

There are plenty of much better approaches to writing a unit converter, just search File Exchange:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange?term=unit+convert

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

I would put those variable names into a drop down list (what Mathworks calls a popup).

Then the user can select one, and in the popup callback, you can execute the proper code for that selection using a switch or if/else block.

Or perhaps less user friendly, you could use the menu() function and execute the appropriate code for whatever button number they clicked on.

Answer 2

[madhan ravi]

There's already one requires symbolic math toolbox :

https://www.mathworks.com/help/symbolic/symunit.html

Use input() or just use inputdlg() to input a value.