I frequently find myself examining deeply nested data in the variable explorer, e.g.:
objectName.structArray1(5).structArray2(3).structArray3(7).doubleArray(4)
In order to be descriptive, the variable names are often long. I often want to use some of the data I'm looking at in Matlab expression, composed at the command line. So I end up typing the lengthy series of variable names and indexes. Autocompletion helps, but not much, especially since my variable names share many substrings.
It would be a lifesaver if I could copy into the clipboard the entire expression corresponding to the data being examined in the variable viewer. I haven't yet found a way to do this (the most obvious way being to right-click the tab for the data being examined). So I'm not sure if this functionality exists. Can anyone confirm or deny (hopefully the former) whether this functionality exists? If it does, how is it done?
As an example, suppose you had a class file myClass.m in the current working directory:
% myClass.m
%----------
classdef myClass
properties
structArray1
end % properties
end % class
Now suppose you issued the following commands:
objectName = myClass
objectName.structArray1(5).structArray2(3).structArray3(7).doubleArray(1:3)=rand(1,3)
openvar('objectName.structArray1(5).structArray2(3).structArray3(7).doubleArray')
You are now examining a slew of data within a deeply nested data structure. Normally, the data would have been the result of computation other than the rand statement above, and I would have browsed to it manually rather than using the openvar statement above. So I would not normally have readily available the text for the expression
objectName.structArray1(5).structArray2(3).structArray3(7).doubleArray
I have to manually type it in at the command line if I want to use it in a Matlab expression for further computation. It'd be so great if I could somehow point to the tab for that data in the variable explorer and somehow have the expression for the data copied to the clipboard. That way, I can paste it to the command line.
AFTERNOTE:
If there's no way to do this, then as an alternative to manually typing in the whole expression above, is there a way to access the corresponding data object (or a copy thereof) programmatically through the variable explorer window object? This assumes, of course, that the variable explorer is itself a data object as well, through which properties can be accessed. If so, maybe it has a property (perhaps deeply nested) that represents the expression for data in the tab that currently has the focus. If so, I can write a function to retrieve the corresponding data object.
I found that if I undock a tab from the Variables editor, I can select the variable name by double-clicking the variable name in the tab.
Sorry for the ambiguity in wording, but "tab" use to mean the protrusion in the data sheet for displaying the name of the data sheet. Nowadays, "tab" means the whole data sheet. In the first sentence above, I mean the protrusion, which unfortunately doesn't have a distinct name these days (at least none of which I'm aware).
After copying and pasting the variable name from the protrusion, the tab can be docked, which seems to put it back into its original place.
Related
I want to define a number of functions for use from the command line and in scripts. One way would be to create one file for every function, and store them in the autoloading folder (e.g. ~/config/fish/functions/one.fish, ~/config/fish/functions/two.fish, ...)
But I don't want to maintain each function in its own file. Is there any way to define a collection of functions in a single file (such that they can be referenced from the command line and from multiple scripts)?
(Alternatively, fish is guided by strong design principles. If there is a documented fish-was-designed-this-way rationale to store one file per user-defined function, I'd like to see it.)
You can just have multiple functions in a single file, but you can only use autoloading for one of them.
The issue is this: If you have a function "foo" and a function "bar" in a file, how is fish supposed to know that, without reading the file first?
For autoloading, the file is named after the function (e.g. "bar" would be stored in "bar.fish"), so fish can figure out where it is.
So, you can do one of two things:
If one of the functions is always called first, then you can use that as the file name and store it in a function file. After you've used that function, fish knows about the rest (since it sourced the file).
If that isn't the case (or you don't want to rely on it), you can either source the file manually whenever you need it (or just once at startup) or store it in a configuration snippet in ~/.config/fish/conf.d/SOMETHING.fish (which fish will source automatically right before reading config.fish).
The former means that e.g. helper functions can be stored along with the main one. The latter is a teensy bit slower when you're loading the file without using the function, but unless you're using this excessively you're unlikely to even notice.
I'm using a simulationenvironment in matlab that's consisting of multiple scripts, functions and simulink models. Now I want to find out which of These created a specific variable in my Base-Workspace. Is there a way of finding this out?
One cannot trace back how a variable was created, but you may find the possible candidates that might create the variable.
If you know the name of the variable (let's say is 'my_var'), the use the 'Find files...' from the Edit menu (the usual key biding is [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[F]) to look into all files that containing the text my_var. Do not forget to configure the containing folder to include other paths than the current one, if you're calling some package/toolbox-level scripts.
I have renamed a .fig and associated .m file generated by MATLAB's GUIDE. Having done this, I receive a long list of error messages including the following (just a sample of them shown below):
Undefined function or variable 'my_gui'.
Error in #(hObject,eventdata)my_gui('edit34_CreateFcn',hObject,eventdata,guidata(hObject))
Undefined function or variable 'my_gui'.
Error in #(hObject,eventdata)my_gui('edit33_CreateFcn',hObject,eventdata,guidata(hObject))
Undefined function or variable 'my_gui'.
Error in #(hObject,eventdata)my_gui('edit32_CreateFcn',hObject,eventdata,guidata(hObject))
These errors all seem to relate to individual items on my GUI, such as buttons, text boxes etc.
The function and .fig file used to be called my_gui.m and my_gui.fig. However, I have sinced changed the name to my_new_gui.m and my_new_gui.fig (I've simplified the actual names for the purposes of this question).
So, the obvious solution is to go into the .m file and replace all instances of my_gui with my_new_gui. However, I've done this, and the same error message appears. I have no idea where MATLAB is the reading text my_gui from, since it doesn't exist in any of my code... Any help would be appreciated!
Edit I've discovered that these old references are written in the callbacks for each item on the GUI, which I can change by opening the Property Inspector for each individual item. However, I have a lot of items. If anyone can offer a solution to quickly edit these using a text editor, rather than clicking each individual one, I'd appreciate it!
Renaming MATLAB GUI should be done using Save As... rather than manually changing the file names. Change the file names back to the original names and change the name using Save As... option in GUIDE. This should automatically rename everything.
I've been working for some time on a MATLAB function to retrieve file names. The function is called getFileName. My problem is that when I try to display help for this function by pressing the F1 key while cursor is on the function name, I instead, get the help for the built in function matlab.io.hdf4.sd.getFilename. I get the same if I write doc getFileName in my command window. Only if I type helpwin getFileName do I get the correct documentation displayed!
This doesn't make sense to me since MATLAB is case sensitive and thereby getFileName is different from getFilename. Furthermore, when I type which getFileName (or for some strange reason, if I type which getFilename), I get the path to my function and not to the built-in function matlab.io.hdf4.sd.getFilename.
So my question is: is it possible to make sure that the function you get documentation for (by pressing the F1 key) is the same function that you run if you type the name of that function?
Matlab isn't actually case sensitive for the help files. In the terminal you can type
doc PLOT
and it will still pop up the documentation for the proper plot function.
I don't know where these files are stored on PC, as I use a Mac, but in the Matlab directory if you search for an uncommon file name (like plotyy) you will see the source file, but you'll also find an html file that doc uses. If you write an html file for the new file it should bring up the right info for the documentation center.
Matlab used to just copy the commented text at the beginning of the file into the documentation center in older versions of matlab, but now it uses html files stored on your drive. I don't know if this will definitely fix your problem as I haven't written an html file for an "almost overloaded" function.
Also, about the weird 'which' thing, I'm pretty sure Matlab first searches the first entry on your path list for a close match, and the current directory is on the top of the list. If you type 'path' into the console it will output all the search paths, and the top ones are searched first.
I apologize for masquerading as if this is an 'Answer' but I don't have enough reputation points to add this as a comment.
I have a .txt file that I need to attach in a column of my sheet, and i have the path to this file.
So I need to read this path and attach the file in another column programmatically. Is there a way to do it?
thanks in advance.
Indeed there is! And using by using macros it is quite easy to do.
Enabling macros
Go to the Tools > Options menu and click on the Security section under OpenOffice.org. Once there, click the Macro Security button. Now on the Security Level Tab, make sure that your settings will allow you to run Macros.
My settings are on low because I'm the author of all the macros I run, if you are not sure that this will be your case you might want to use a higher setting.
Note: Be careful, if you are unlucky or live in the 90's an evil macro can cause serious damage!
Creating a new macro
Now that you can run them, you must create a new macro. OpenOffice accepts a wide range of languages including Python, but since you didn't specified any I'll use OO's version of basic here.
Go to Tools > Macros > Organize Macros > OpenOffice.org Basic, and once there add a new module under your file's tree. Give it a meaningful name.
The actual macro
Once you create a new module the editor screen will pop up, write this code below:
Sub DataFromFile
Dim FileNo As Integer
Dim CurrentLine As String
Dim File As String
Dim Msg as String
Dim I as Integer
' Get the filename from the cell, in this case B1.
currentSheet=ThisComponent.CurrentController.ActiveSheet
fileName = currentSheet.getCellRangeByName("B1").getString
' Create a new file handler and open it for reading
FileNo = FreeFile
Open fileName For Input As #FileNo
I = 0
' Read file until EOF is reached
Do While not eof(FileNo)
' Read line
Line Input #FileNo, CurrentLine
' Define the range to put the data in as A4:A999 '
curentCell = currentSheet.getCellRangeByName("A4:A999").getCellByPosition(0,I)
' Select the I-th cell on the defined range and put a line of the file there
curentCell.String = CurrentLine
'Increase I by one
I = I + 1
Loop
Close #FileNo
End Sub
To test it, just create a text file and put something in it, then put the path to it on cell B1 and run the macro. You can run the macro in many ways, for test purposes just use the Run button on the same window that you used to create the module. This is the expected result:
Note: If you are unfamiliar with linux, don't be intimidated by that file path, it's just how they are on linux. This would just work the same with windows and it's file path structure.
Further improving the macro
I wrote the code above with the goal of making it as easy to understand as possible, therefore the macro have plenty of room for improvement, such as:
Being able to show the data retrieved on multiple columns/A single column/Something else
Once you have retrieved the data from the file, you can display it on your spreadsheet in nearly anyway you want it. Let me know if the way you initially intended was not addressed and I will edit the answer.
Having to re-run the macro every time you want the data updated.
This is easily fixed. There are many ways to automatize the macro execution, the one I'm most familiar with consists on making it run on a loop in conjunction with a delay of, say, 5 seconds and making it start as soon as the file loads.
Sub Main
Do While True
DataFromFile()
Wait(5000)
Loop
End Sub
And from now on you should call the Main sub instead of the DataFromFile.
To make the macro run at start-up go to Tools > Customize on the Events tab and select Open Document from the list then click on the Macro button. On the dialog to select the macro, pick Main. Now close the document, reopen it, and voila!
Using Cell Ranges
It's easier to keep your code and make changes to it if you name the cell ranges and use their names instead of their absolute address. To name a range (or a single cell) you must first select it then click on Data > Define Range to give it a name, for example B1 could be called 'FilePath' and A4:A999 could be called 'DataRange'. This way if you ever need to change them, you don't have to change the macro, just the defined range name.
Don't forget to update the code to look for the range instead of the address, for example, this bit of code:
getCellRangeByName("A4:A999")
would be rewritten to
getCellRangeByName("DataRange")
Error checking
It is a good idea to check and deal with error or unexpected events. What if the file doesn't exists? What if it is bigger than the defined range?
Further reading
Official reference regarding files for OpenOffice Basic macros.
A guide on different ways to run a macro
A great introduction to macro programming