How can I construct a struct handle from a string?

I am encountering a lot of answers about the evils of dynamicly assigning variable/funciton names, etc. As a new user, I am trying to learn the right way to use MATLAB, and am trying to heed to lessons found in MATLAB answers.

However, at present, I have several structs each named identically but with a numeric at the end and I am working within a limited time frame. I am hoping to be able to assign a string to match the name of the struct and then turn the string into a handle that lets me index into/access values within each of the structs. Is there a simple way about this?

example struct names:

'structData1'

'structData2'

I want to ideally say:

for ii = 1: (10)

sname = ['structData', ii]

% Convert string 'sname' to struct in memory

data_of_interest = sname.fieldname

Usin 'eval' seems like a pain. Is there an easier way? What are structs essentially? What data type would I be converting the string value to in order to access the place in memory where a struct is stored?

[Walter Roberson]

 I have several structs each named identically but with a numeric at the end

Why? Why didn't you use a single variable that is indexed? How are you getting those struct in memory that could not be done by indexing instead?

[Charles Pace]

I am not sure. It seemed convenient to store the data in a stuct , becase it sort of resembled a table format.

1 of the fields corresponds to one of the params used to generate the matrices stored in the other fields. It helps me to be able to look at the struct like a table.

The columns of the struct are like so { Param, Matrix, Matrix, Matrix ... }

The matrices are of different dimensions but relate/were generated by the parameter.

Are you saying I should have just saved the matrices each in their own variable, and then via indexing and smart-variable naming, been aware of which parameter they corresponded to?

I'm sorry. I am new to MATLAB and structs seemed like a convenient tablature way to format the data. Maybe a cell array is better? I don't know! That's why I am asking lol.

[Walter Roberson]

MATLAB has tables which are mostly aimed at 2d work (rows each with a value for each named variable)

MATLAB structures can be arrays. When that is used, each array element must have the same field names, but the types and sizes stored do not need to be consistent.

When the datatypes of a collection of objects need to differ or named fields are not appropriate, then cell arrays can be used.

Structures can also have dynamic field access

Variable.(expression)

where expression evaluates to a field name. For example if you can encode your file name as a valid matlab variable name then you can effectively get a structure with fields named after the files. This is workable, but not quite as clean as keeping a variable listing the file names, searching it to find the index of a given file name, and using that index to index a structure array or cell array (those permit easier processing of all the stored information since if you need to (say) normalize all of the data you do not care what its associated name is.)

[Stephen23]

"I have several structs each named identically but with a numeric at the end and I am working within a limited time frame."

A limited time frame... and poor data design that slows you down with problems that you cannot solve by yourself.

"I am hoping to be able to assign a string to match the name of the struct and then turn the string into a handle that lets me index into/access values within each of the structs. Is there a simple way about this?"

No.

Poor data design cannot be fixed by some "simple way". That why it is considered bad data design.

"I am not sure. It seemed convenient to store the data in a stuct , becase it sort of resembled a table format."

You missed the point of Walter Roberson's comment. There is no problem with using structures. The problem is numbering variables and then hoping to find a simple, efficient, neat, easy way to access them dynamically.

Answer 1

[Peter Perkins]

A scalar struct with a field for each variable that you would have put in the workspace is often useful. It's like a private workspace, but one in which you can get at things with "dynamic" names with having to resort to eval.

s.(myVarName)

You can also use structfun to loop over every field.

[Steven Lord]

One way to quickly turn the independent struct arrays you have in the workspace into one large struct, with each of the independent structs as fields, is to use save and load as long as you have a directory to which you have write permission (like tempdir).

>> cd(tempdir)
>> s1 = struct('foo', 42, 'bar', -99);
>> s2 = struct('abracadabra', "magic word");
>> s3 = struct('huey', [1 0 0], 'louie', 'g', 'dewey', 'blue');
>> whos
  Name      Size            Bytes  Class     Attributes

  s1        1x1               368  struct              
  s2        1x1               342  struct              
  s3        1x1               562  struct              

>> save temporaryData.mat
>> data = load('temporaryData.mat')

data = 

  struct with fields:

    s1: [1×1 struct]
    s2: [1×1 struct]
    s3: [1×1 struct]

>> data.('s3').dewey

ans =

    'blue'

But I agree with the rest of the group -- avoiding creating the variables s1, s2, s3 independently is preferable IMO.