How to create a structure in which variables can be labelled with a string?

I need a data structure in which there are structs with common fields: xxx.mean, xxx.std, xxx.description, yyy.mean, yyy.std, yyy.description, zzz.mean, zzz.std, zzz.description, etc.

But I want to load/call/get xxx, yyy or zzz by labelling it by a string, so I can change between them by changing the label: mystring = 'xxxname' or mystring = 'yyyname'.

So something like this: 'xxxname'.mean or 'yyyname'.std

[John D'Errico]

In general, this is a poor coding style, creating variable names on the fly. It will lead to buggy code.

[Stephen23]

@Mr M.: you have asked essentially the same question multiple times:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/217582-is-it-possible-generate-and-handle-generated-variable-names

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/223224-is-it-possible-to-set-a-variable-by-its-name

and been told repeatedly that dynamically accessing variable names is a bad idea and should be avoided. Do you think that asking again is going to change this advice ?

[Mr M.]

Please answer the question. And I dont want dynamically accessing variable names. I want a struct with sting indices or flags. I dont want to change the name! I dont want to create variable names on the fly

[Stephen23]

@Mr M.: xxx and yyy are variable names (the fact that they are structures is totally irrelevant). You want to change their names (that is what your question states). Ergo, you want to change variable names.

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

Just use one structure S and dynamic fieldnames:

>> S.('xxx').name = 'anna';
>> S.('yyy').name = 'bob';
>> S.('xxx').mean = 100;
>> S.('yyy').mean = -pi;

and access the data in the usual way:

>> S.('xxx').mean
ans =  100
>> S.('xxx').name
ans = anna

See how easy it is?

FYI, what you are proposing is possible but it requires creating and accessing the variables dynamically, which is a very bad way to write code, because it is slow, buggy, and obfuscated:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/196952-how-to-create-new-variables-in-batches-with-strcat

http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_prog/string-evaluation.html

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

[Jos (10584)]

Just to elaborate on this: you can create a variable that holds the name of the label:

TheLabel = 'xxx'
S.(TheLabel).name