How do I create column names?

I have a 1x49 cell array (header_file) that contains the column names of a 1998x49 double data array (data_file). How do I make the 49 values in the header_file be the 49 column names in the data_file?

Answer 1

[John Petersen]

Can you use a structure instead with fieldnames of the column names?

1. Read the names in as strings.

2. Read the data into an array.

3. Use setfield to assign fieldnames to the structure and set the value to the appropriate column of the array.

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

Numeric arrays cannot have non-numeric headers.

The closest you can get is to create a cell array:

newcell = [header_file; num2cell(data_file)];