for loop with vectors having different sizes

I have the following problem:

a=[1 2];
b=[3 4 5];
c=[6 7];
d=[8 9 10 11];
casetype='trial';

for activevector=[a' b']
    for passivevector=[c' d']
        casestudy=[casetype,' - active (',num2str(activevector'),') passive (',num2str(passivevector'),')'];
        mkdir([name,casestudy]);
    end
end

Error massage is:

Error using horzcat

Dimensions of arrays being concatenated are not consistent.

Error in Untitled (line 9)

for passivevector=[c' d']

For example, I want to have:

casetype - active (1 2) passive (6 7)

casetype - active (1 2) passive (8 9 10 11)

ecc..

Not:

casetype - active (1) passive (6)

casetype - active (1) passive (7)

ecc..

How can I overcome this problem?

[Stephen23]

Give that c is 1x1 and d is 1x4, what do you expect [c' d'] to achieve?

You could store those vectors in cell arrays, then you can trivially loop over them.

[Gaetano Pavone]

I have edited my question. I need [c' d'] to iterate over the values of a single vector

[Stephen23]

"I need [c' d'] to iterate over the values of a single vector"

Okay.

Why do you (complex conjugate) transpose both c and d before concatenating, but neither a nor b ?

[Gaetano Pavone]

Sorry, also [a' b']

[Stephen23]

What is the goal of the (complex conjugate) tranpose? Why do you need it?

[Gaetano Pavone]

I would like that my code creates a list of folders named for example: casetype - active (a) passive (c), and all possible combinations

[Stephen23]

Your explanation contradicts the code itself. You wrote that you want "to iterate over the values of a single vector", but the loop iterator variables are named activevector and passivevector, which tells us that you expect them to be vectors.

So which should they be: vectors (as the variable names state) or individual values (as you explained) ?

If you want to iterate over the individual values, remove all transposes inside the concatenations.

Tip: replace the string concatenation with sprintf:

a = 2;
p = 6;
c = 'trial';
sprintf('%s - active (%d) passive (%d)',c,a,p)

ans = 'trial - active (2) passive (6)'

Answer 1

[Jan]

Omit the single quotes, because there is no reason for the conjugate complex transposition:

a=[1 2];
b=[3 4 5];
c=[6 7];
d=[8 9 10 11];
casetype='trial';
for activevector = [a, b]
    for passivevector = [c, d]
        casestudy = [casetype, ' - active (', num2str(activevector), ...
                     ') passive (', num2str(passivevector), ')'];
        mkdir([name,casestudy]);
    end
end

Neither [a, b], [c, d] not activevector or passivevector need to be transposed.

When a is a 1x2 vector, a' is a 2x1 vector. You cannot concatenate an 2x1 and 3x1 vector horizontally, because they have different numbers of rows.

The code fails due to a missing "name".

[Gaetano Pavone]

Unfortunately, your code executes the loop over each elements of the vectors. I need to traspose for iterating over the values of a single vector.

For example, I want to have:

casetype - active (1 2) passive (6 7)

casetype - active (1 2) passive (8 9 10 11)

ecc..

Not:

casetype - active (1) passive (6)

casetype - active (1) passive (7)

ecc..

[Gaetano Pavone]

@Stephen Cobeldick please see my last comment

Answer 2

[Bjorn Gustavsson]

To fool-proof your concatenation, and to generate better directory-names you could do something like this:

a = [1 2];
b = [3 4 5];
c = [6 7];
d = [8 9 10 11];
casetype = 'trial';
for i_active = [a(:).' b(:).']    % (:) converts to column-array, then .' to row-array 
  for i_passive = [c(:).' d(:).'] % and then to long arrays
    casestudy = sprintf('%s-active-%02d-passive-%02d',casetype,i_active,i_passive);
    dirname = fullfile(name,casestudy);
    mkdir(dirname);
  end
end

The %02d is to make the directory-name more handy with leading zero-padding, that is just better. Don't insert white-spaces in file and directory-names, that is just asking for annoying troubles later on.

HTH

[Gaetano Pavone]

Unfortunately, your code executes the loop over each elements of the vectors. Please, see my edited question

[Bjorn Gustavsson]

Not unfortunately, by design. Now with a modified question we're expected to modify our help. Is this the final question on this?

The answer here is not to store this information in the directory-names. This type of meta-data you should store in the data in your experiment parameters data-file. So I advice you to modify Stephen's suggestion below to something like this:

a = {[1,2],[3,4,5]};
p = {[6,7],[8,9,10,11]};
c = 'trial';
i_exp = 1;
for k1 = 1:numel(a)
  for k2 = 1:numel(p)
    dirname = fullfile(name,sprintf('Experiment-%02d',i_exp));
    mkdir(dirname)
    active = a{k1};
    passive = p{k2}
    save(fullfile(dirname,'experiment_parameters.mat'),'active','passive')
    i_exp = i_exp + 1;
  end
end

You might prefer slightly different directory names, but storing meta-data there is not the best way to do it and should definitely not be the only place where you store them.

Answer 3

[Stephen23]

a = {[1,2],[3,4,5]};
p = {[6,7],[8,9,10,11]};
c = 'trial';
for k1 = 1:numel(a)
    for k2 = 1:numel(p)
        s = sprintf('%s - active (%s) passive (%s)',c,...
            join(string(a{k1})),...
            join(string(p{k2})))
    end
end

s = 'trial - active (1 2) passive (6 7)'

s = 'trial - active (1 2) passive (8 9 10 11)'

s = 'trial - active (3 4 5) passive (6 7)'

s = 'trial - active (3 4 5) passive (8 9 10 11)'