Game of Life GUI help

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I am trying to randomize the career when a push button is ran, but I never get the answer in the edit text box, here is my code

function pfc1_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
collegechoice=questdlg('Go To College?');
if collegechoice == 'Yes'
    career=randi(9);
elseif career==1
     set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Entertainer');
elseif career==2
    set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Computer Consultant');
elseif career==3
    set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Teacher');
elseif career==4
    set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Athlete');
elseif career==5
    set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Sales Person');
elseif career==6
    set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Police Officer');
elseif career==7
    set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Artist');
elseif career==8
    set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Doctor');
elseif career==9
    set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Accountant');
end

Answer 1

[Steven Lord]

I would not use a large if / elseif / else / end tree. A switch / case / end statement would be a simpler approach that may be of use to you later in your implementation, but there's an even easier technique you can use for this case. Just use indexing to select a random element from a list of careers.

function pfc1_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
collegechoice=questdlg("Go To College?");
if collegechoice == "Yes"
    listOfCareers = ["Entertainer"; "Computer Consultant"; "Teacher"; ...
                     "Athlete"; "Sales Person"; "Police Officer"; ...
                     "Artist"; "Doctor"; "Accountant"];
    career=randi(9);
    handles.careerbox1.String = listOfCareers(career);
else
    handles.careerbox1.String = "Unemployed";
end

You could add additional careers to the list if you wanted. The numel function will be of use to you if you do.

I modified the code to use string data rather than char data. That way you can avoid the need to work with cell arrays containing char arrays, which can be confusing at times.

[Jacob Huhtala]

Thank you, that makes it much simpler!

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

You need two if's, or a gate check. Here is one way (using two if's)

function pfc1_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
collegechoice = questdlg('Go To College?');
career = 0; % Initialize
if contains(collegechoice, 'Yes')
    career=randi(9);
end
if career==1
     set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Entertainer');
elseif career==2
    set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Computer Consultant');
elseif career==3
    set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Teacher');
elseif career==4
    set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Athlete');
elseif career==5
    set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Sales Person');
elseif career==6
    set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Police Officer');
elseif career==7
    set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Artist');
elseif career==8
    set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Doctor');
elseif career==9
    set(handles.careerbox1,'String','Accountant');
else
    handles.careerbox1.String = 'Unemployed'
end