Matlab: specifying argument's name when passing it to function (Ruby `hash`) - matlab

Is it possible to define and use a function like this?
generate_mode_matrix_and_mode_frequency_and_Hw(generate_Hw: true);
function generate_mode_matrix_and_mode_frequency_and_Hw(generate_Hw)
if generate_Hw ## NOTICE: this argument is optional
.....
end
end
What I want is to specify the name of the argument when passing it. In ruby it's called hash.
The point of doing this is that, when using it, the coder know what the true mean without comment. This is
Compare this 2:
generate_mode_matrix_and_mode_frequency_and_Hw(generate_Hw: true)
generate_mode_matrix_and_mode_frequency_and_Hw(true)
Clearly, the first one is more clear.
Notice: generate_Hw is an optional argument. So without specifying it, the function would also work.

You can use something similar to Property\Value pairs:
function Foo(varargin)
for n=1:2:nargin
switch varargin{n}
case 'var1'
var1 = varargin{n+1};
case 'var2'
var2 = varargin{n+1};
end
end
In this example if you use Foo('var1',value) then var1 would get the desired value. If you don't specify the pair 'var1',value in the input, then var1 will not exist in Foo.

Related

error: "struct" expression not at top level

function check(str,arg;type=DataType,max=nothing,min=nothing,description="")
#argcheck typeof(arg)==type
#argcheck arg>min
#argcheck arg<max
#argcheck typeof(description)==String
return arg
end
function constr(name,arg,field)
return :(function $name($arg,$field)
new(check($name,$arg,$field))
end)
end
macro creatStruct(name,arg)
code = Base.remove_linenums!(quote
struct $name
end
end)
print(arg)
append!(code.args[1].args[3].args,[constr(name,arg.args[1].args[1],arg.args[1].args[2])])
code
end
macro myStruct(name,arg)
#creatStruct name arg
end
#myStruct test12 (
(arg1,(max=10))
)
In my code above I'm trying to build a macro that Creates a struct, and within the struct, you can define an argument with boundaries (max, min) and description, etc.
I'm getting this error:
syntax: "#141#max = 10" is not a valid function argument name
and every time I'm trying to solve it, I get another error like:
LoadError: syntax: "struct" expression not at top level
So, I think my Code/Approach is not that cohesive. Anybody can suggest tips and/or another Approche.
You're attempting to make an argument name max with a default value of 10. The error is about max=10 not being a valid name (Symbol), while max is. The bigger issue is you're trying to put this in the struct expression instead of a constructor method:
struct Foo
bar::Float64
max::Int64
end
# constructor
Foo(bar, max=10) = Foo(bar, max)
So you have to figure out how to make an expression for a method with default values, too.
Your second error means that structs must be defined in the top-level. "Top-level" is like global scope but stricter in some contexts; I don't know the exact difference, but it definitely excludes local scopes (macro, function, etc). It looks like the issue is the expression returned by creatStruct being evaluated as code in myStruct, but the LoadError I'm getting has a different message. In any case, the error goes away if I make sure things stay as expressions:
macro myStruct(name,arg)
:(#creatStruct $name $arg)
end

Workaround equivalent of "inputname" to return structure name?

I know that, inside a MATLAB function, inputname(k) will return the k-th argument iff the argument is a variable name. Is there any way to write some parsing code that can retrieve the full input argument when that argument is a structure, e.g. foo.bar ? The reason I want to be able to do this is that I'm writing some tools for generic use where the input could be either a named variable or a named structure element.
My primary intent is to be able to store and return the input argment(s) as part of a structure or other variable that the function returns. This is a 'chain of custody' feature which makes it easier for me or others to verify the source data sets used to generate the output data sets.
I don't want the user to have to self-parse externally, or to have to deal with some kludge like
function doit(name,fieldname)
if(exist('fieldname','var'))
name = name.(fieldname);
myinput = [inputname(1),inputname(2)];
else
myinput = inputname(1);
end
% do the function stuff
(I call this a kludge because it both requires the user to enter strange arguments and because it fouls up the argument sequence for functions with multiple inputs)
There is no support from the language to get the input names when passing structs. The reason is probably x.a is internally a call to subsref which returns a new variable, all context is lost. The only possibility you have is using the debug tools and parse the code. There is no other option.
function x=f(varargin)
[ST, I] = dbstack('-completenames', 1);
if numel(ST)>0
fid=fopen(ST(1).file,'r');
for ix=2:ST(1).line;fgetl(fid);end
codeline=fgetl(fid);
fclose(fid);
fprintf('function was called with line %s\n',codeline);
else
fprintf('function was called from base workspace\n');
end
end
From there you may try to parse the code line to get the individual argument names.
Far uglier than Daniel's approach, and probably will crash on the wrong OS, but here's a hack that works to retrieve the first argument; easily adjusted to retrieve all arguments.
[~,myname] = system('whoami');
myname = strtrim(myname(4:end)); % removes domain tag in my Windows envir
% sorry about " \' " fouling up SO's color parsing
myloc = ['C:\Users\' , myname , '\AppData\Roaming\MathWorks\MATLAB\R2015a\History.xml'] ;
f = fopen(myloc,'r');
foo = fscanf(f,'%s');
fclose(f);
pfoo = findpat(foo,'myFunctionName');
% just look for the last instance
namstart = find(foo(pfoo(end):(pfoo(end)+30)) =='(',1) +pfoo(end);
% catch either ')' or ','
namend(1) = find(foo((namstart):end)== ')',1) -2 +namstart;
if numel(find(foo((namstart):end)== ',',1)),
namend(2) = find(foo((namstart):end)== ',',1) -2 +namstart;
end
thearg = foo(namstart:(min(namend)) );

Giving default values to only some function variables in Matlab

I made a Matlab function
function foo(argone, argtwo)
The begining of the function allow to have default choices for those variables if the function is called only with one or even zero arguments
function foo(argone, argtwo)
if(~exist('argone','var'))
argone = defaultargone;
end
if(~exist('argtwo', 'var'))
argtwo = defaultargtwo;
end
... % Rest of the code
We can call the function as
foo() % Default values are assigned to argone and argtwo
foo(myargone) % Default value given to argtwo
foo(myargone, myargtwo) % No default values are used
But how to be able to give default value to argone only?
If function is called with
foo(~, myargtwo)
no default values are used; argone get the null value (that is not the default value)
Thank you for your help
An alternate way would be to include the option for handling an empty input:
function foo(argone, argtwo)
if ~exist('argone','var')||isempty(argone)
argone = defaultargone;
end
if ~exist('argtwo','var')||isempty(argtwo)
argtwo = defaultargtwo;
end
Then any of these should work:
foo()
foo([],[])
foo(argone)
foo([], argtwo)
The language itself does not support such inputs. A common workaround uses parameter value pairs.
Usange would be
foo('myargone',1, 'myargtwo',2)
foo('myargtwo',3)
foo('myargone',4)
In your function, you have to use varargin and the input parser

Return a field from a function that returns a struct

I'm using the function dbstack to get the name of the currently executing function. dbstack returns a struct, with three fields: file, name and line. I'm only interested in name. Is there any way of returning just the name field when I call the dbstack function, or do I need to use two lines (the following)?
thisFunction = dbstack;
thisFunctionName = thisFunction.name;
Your solution is the easiest (and propebly the best) way of doing what you want.
Alternatively, you can use getfield
>> thisFunctionName = getfield( dbstack, 'name' )

MATLAB assign variable name

I have a variable called 'int' with alot of data in it. I would like to find a way to programically rename this variable with a user input. So I can query the user indentifcation information about the data, say the response is 'AA1', I want either rename the variable 'int' to 'AA1' or make 'AA1' a variable that is identical to int.
A problem using the input command arises because it allows the user to assign a value to an already created varialbe, instead of actually creating a variable name. Would using the eval function, or a variation of it, help me achieve this? Or is there an easier way?
Thanks!
Just for the record, int is a rather poor variable name choice.
That aside, you can do what you want as follows
say foo is the variable that holds a string that the user input. You can do the following:
% eliminate leading/trailing whitespace
foo = strtrim(foo);
a = regexp('[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9_]*',foo));
if numel(a) == 0
fprintf('Sorry, %s is not a valid variable name in matlab\n', foo);
elseif a ~= 1
fprintf('Sorry, %s is not a valid variable name in matlab\n', foo);
elseif 2 == exist(foo,'var')
fprintf('Sorry, %s already in use as a variable name.');
else
eval([foo,' = int']);
end
Assuming int (and now foo) is a structure with field named bar, you can read bar as follows:
barVal = eval([foo,'.bar']);
This is all somewhat clunky.
An alternative approach, that is far less clunky is to use an associative array, and let the user store various values of int in the array. The Matlab approach for associative arrays is Maps. That would be my preferred approach to this problem. Here is an example using the same variables as above.
nameValueMap = containers.Map;
nameValueMap(foo) = int;
The above creates the association between the name stored in foo with the data in the variable int.
To get at the data, you just do the following:
intValue = nameValueMap(foo);