Using a string output to access a variable with the same name.

Hello!

I'm new to MATLAB. Forgive me if this is trivial.

I have a 8x2 cell array called "*shipNames*" where column 1 is a list of numbers 1:8, and column 2 is the name of a series of variables (i.e. names of different ships).

I'm writing a code with user input, and the first thing I want the user to do is specify the ship whose data they are interested in.

load shipData;
shipNames
shipSelect=input('enther the corresponding number of the ship you wish to analyze');
currentShip=shipNames(shipSelect,2)

The return of currentShip is the name of the array containing data for that ship and this is a string. For example, if 'Titanic' the return of the above script, Titanic (a 10x3 array) is the variable that I want to analyze.

Here's where things get tricky (maybe)...

Instead of referring to Titanic as a variable, I'd rather write my code to look at currentShip. Essentially, I want to create a mask for Titanic called currentShip.

Hopefully this makes some sense! Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

http://matlab.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ#How_can_I_create_variables_A1.2C_A2.2C....2CA10_in_a_loop.3F

Answer 2

[Daniel Shub]

If you change your code slightly you can do this pretty cleanly.

data = load(shipData);
shipNames = data.shipNames;
...
currentShip = shipNames(shipSelect,2) % I don't think this does what you think it does.
currentShipName = currentShip;
currentShip = data.(currentShipName);