Is there a way that I get all the structure subsubfield values of a subfield in one line ? Something like this :
struct.field(1:end).field
If I understand your question aright, you want to collect all the fields of the second-level structure, with the name 'field', into a single output array. It doesn't quite meet your request for a one-liner, but you can do it like this:
a.field1.a = 1;
a.field1.b = 2;
a.field2.a = 3;
a.field2.b = 4;
result = [];
for x = fieldnames(a)'
result = horzcat(result, a.(x{:}).a);
end
The ending value of result is [1 3]
Simple Structure Example
aStruct.subField = struct('subSubField', {1;2;3;4})
So that
aStruct.subField(1).subSubField == 1
aStruct.subField(1).subSubField == 2
Etc. Then the values of the leaf nodes can be obtained via a one-liner as
valueLeafs = [aStruct.subField.subSubField];
Which can be checked via assert(all(valueLeafs == [1,2,3,4])).
Non-Scalar Structure Example
The above one-liner also works when the leaf node values are non-scalar such that they can be horizontally concatenated. For example
bStruct.subField = struct('subSubField', {[1,2];[3,4]})
valueLeafs_b = [bStruct.subField.subSubField]; % works okay
cStruct.subField = struct('subSubField', {[1,2];[3;4]})
valueLeafs_c = [cStruct.subField.subSubField]; % error: bad arg dims
Distinct Class Structure Example
The one-line solution given previously does not work whenever the leaf node values are different class since they cannot - in general, be concatenated. However, use of arrayfun and a tricky anonymous function typically provide the required indexing technique:
dStruct.subField = struct('subSubField', {[1;2];'myString'});
valueLeafs_d = arrayfun(#(x) x.subSubField, dStruct.subField, 'UniformOutput', false)
Related
I am a newbie. I have problem.
I have 20 (1x100) different named vectors. I want to combine these vectors to create a 20x100 matrix with a for loop.
There are the examples of vectors.
namelist=["First","B","New"]
First = [1:100]
B = [1:2:200]
New = [4:4:400]
for i = 1: length(namelist)
new_database(i,1:end) = namelist{i}
end
But, when I want to try this I saw "The end operator must be used within an array index expression." error.
I know I can do same thing with this:
"new_database= [First;B;New]"
but i want to do this with a for loop.
Would you help me how can fix this error? or Would you explain me how can do this?
Your problem is with this line:
new_database(i,1:end) = namelist{i}
the curly braces are used with cells, exclusively and there is no need to use range indexing as you do (i, 1:end)
Generally, it is better practice to assign character arrays or strings to cells.
One question, what are you doing with the 'First', 'New' and 'B' ranges arrays?
Something like:
namelist=["First","B","New"]
First = [1:100];
B = [1:2:200];
New = [4:4:400];
new_database = cell(1, length(namelist));
for i = 1: length(namelist) % or length(new_database)
new_database{i} = namelist(i)
end
which generates this output:
EDIT: My apologies, now I see what you are trying to accomplish. You are building a database from a series of arrays, correct?
Following my previous response, you must consider some points:
1 Your new_database should be square. Regardless of the dimensions of the arrays you are passing to it, if you form a cell from them, you will invariably have empty cells if no data is passed to those rows or columns
2 In some cases, you don't need to use for-loops, where simple indexing might suffice your case problem. Consider the following example using cellstr:
titles = ["Position", "Fruits", "Mythical creatures"]
A = ["One", "Two", "Three"];
B = ["Apple", "Banana", "Durian"];
C = ["Dragon", "Cat", "Hamster"];
db = cell(4, 3);
db(1,:) = cellstr(titles)
db(2:end,1) = cellstr(A)
db(2:end,2) = cellstr(B)
db(2:end,3) = cellstr(C)
which generates this output:
I have a Matlab object, that is a cell array containting structs that have almost identical structures and I want to programmatically get a (sub)field of the structs of all cell array elements.
For example, we take test
test = {struct('a',struct('sub',1)), struct('a',struct('sub',2),'b',1)};
This will create a cell array with the following structure:
cell-element 1: a --> sub --> 1
cell-element 2: a --> sub --> 2
\-> b --> 1
It can be seen that the elements of test don't have the exact same structure, but similar. How can I get all values of the a.sub fields of the elements of the cell. I can obtain them in this specific problem with
acc=zeros(1,numel(test));
for ii=1:numel(test)
acc(ii) = test{ii}.a.sub;
end
but I can't quite get this method to work in a more general context (ie. having different fields).
You may want to use the function getfield:
%//Data to play with
test = {struct('a',struct('sub',1)), struct('a',struct('sub',2),'b',1)};
%//I'm interested in these nested fields
nested_fields = {'a', 'sub'};
%//Scan the cell array to retrieve the data array
acca = cellfun(#(x) getfield(x, nested_fields{:}), test);
In case your data cannot guarantee that all the elements are the same type and size, then you need to output a cell array instead:
%//Scan the cell array to retrieve the data cell array
accc = cellfun(#(x) getfield(x, nested_fields{:}), test, 'UniformOutput', false);
Later Edit
If one wants to use different sets of nested fields for each cell element then:
%//nested_fields list should have the same size as test
nested_fields = {{'a','sub'}, {'b'}};
accm = cellfun(#(x,y) getfield(x,y{:}), test, nested_fields, 'UniformOutput', false);
Edit: No need for recursion, as shown by #CST-link:s answer; the native getfield function can neatly unfold a cell array of fields as its second argument, e.g. getfield(foo{i}, fields{:}) instead of the call to the recursive function in my old answer below. I'll leave the recursive solution below, however, as it could have some value in the context of the question.
You can build you own recursive version of getField, taking a cell array of fields.
function value = getFieldRec(S,fields)
if numel(fields) == 1
value = getfield(S, fields{1});
else
S = getfield(S,fields{1})
fields{1} = [];
fields = fields(~cellfun('isempty',fields));
value = getFieldRec(S,fields);
end
end
Example usage:
foo = {struct('a',struct('sub',1)), ...
struct('a',struct('sub',2),'b',3), ...
struct('c',struct('bar',7),'u',5)};
accessFields = {'a.sub', 'b', 'c.bar'};
values = zeros(1,numel(foo));
for i = 1:numel(foo)
fields = strsplit(accessFields{i},'.');
values(i) = getFieldRec(foo{i},fields);
end
With the following result
values =
1 3 7
I have found a way to do this using eval:
function out = catCellStructSubField(cellStruct, fieldName)
out = zeros(1,numel(cellStruct));
for ii = 1:numel(cellStruct)
out(ii) = eval(['cellStruct{ii}.' fieldName]);
end
Where it can be used on my test example like this:
catCellStructSubField(test, 'a.sub')
Dynamic field names (cellStruct{ii}.(fieldName)) does not work because I'm accessing sub-fields.
I know eval is often a bad idea. I'm curious for different solutions.
I'd like to achieve the following using dynamic fieldnames instead of setfield:
Say a struct 'myStruct' has a set of nested structures, i.e.
myStruct.a.b.c = 0
myStruct.a.d = 0
myStruct.a.e.f.g = 0
I want to be able to flexibly set the leaf structure values as follows:
fields = {'a', 'b', 'c'}
paramVal = 1
setfield(myStruct, fields{:}, paramVal)
This works using setfield. Is there a syntax that will do this using dynamic fieldnames? The following obviously doesn't work because the fieldname needs to be a string not an array, but demonstrates what I want:
myStruct.(fields{:}) = 0
Which would be equivalent to:
myStruct.('a').('b').('c') = 0
Recursive solution without eval, ripped from one of my old utility functions:
function s = setsubfield(s, fields, val)
if ischar(fields)
fields = regexp(fields, '\.', 'split'); % split into cell array of sub-fields
end
if length(fields) == 1
s.(fields{1}) = val;
else
try
subfield = s.(fields{1}); % see if subfield already exists
catch
subfield = struct(); % if not, create it
end
s.(fields{1}) = setsubfield(subfield, fields(2:end), val);
end
I guess the try/catch can be replaced with if isfield(s, fields{1}) ..., I don't remember why I coded it like that.
Usage:
>> s = struct();
>> s = setsubfield(s, {'a','b','c'}, 55);
>> s = setsubfield(s, 'a.b.d.e', 12)
>> s.a.b.c
ans =
55
>> s.a.b.d.e
ans =
12
Below is a simple, if crude, solution that works for scalar structs. Applying it to your example,
S=setfld(myStruct,'a.b.c',1)
>> S.a.b.c
ans =
1
In general, though, deeply nested structs are unrecommended.
function S=setfld(S,fieldpath,V)
%A somewhat enhanced version of setfield() allowing one to set
%fields in substructures of structure/object S by specifying the FIELDPATH.
%
%Usage: setfld(S,'s.f',V) will set S.s.f=V
%
%
%%Note that for structure S, setfield(S.s,'f') would crash with an error if
%S.s did not already exist. Moreover, it would return a modified copy
%of S.s rather than a modified copy of S, behavior which would often be
%undesirable.
%
%
%Works for any object capable of a.b.c.d ... subscripting
%
%Currently, only single structure input is supported, not structure arrays.
try
eval(['S.' fieldpath '=V;']);
catch
error 'Something''s wrong.';
end
I have a function that returns one or more variables, but as it changes (depending on whether the function is successful or not), the following does NOT work:
[resultA, resultB, resultC, resultD, resultE, resultF] = func(somevars);
This will sometimes return an error, varargout{2} not defined, since only the first variable resultA is actually given a value when the function fails. Instead I put all the output in one variable:
output = func(somevars);
However, the variables are defined as properties of a struct, meaning I have to access them with output.A. This is not a problem in itself, but I need to count the number of properties to determine if I got the proper result.
I tried length(output), numel(output) and size(output) to no avail, so if anyone has a clever way of doing this I would be very grateful.
length(fieldnames(output))
There's probably a better way, but I can't think of it.
It looks like Matthews answer is the best for your problem:
nFields = numel(fieldnames(output));
There's one caveat which probably doesn't apply for your situation but may be interesting to know nonetheless: even if a structure field is empty, FIELDNAMES will still return the name of that field. For example:
>> s.a = 5;
>> s.b = [1 2 3];
>> s.c = [];
>> fieldnames(s)
ans =
'a'
'b'
'c'
If you are interested in knowing the number of fields that are not empty, you could use either STRUCTFUN:
nFields = sum(~structfun(#isempty,s));
or a combination of STRUCT2CELL and CELLFUN:
nFields = sum(~cellfun('isempty',struct2cell(s)));
Both of the above return an answer of 2, whereas:
nFields = numel(fieldnames(s));
returns 3.
I want to combine two structures with differing fields names.
For example, starting with:
A.field1 = 1;
A.field2 = 'a';
B.field3 = 2;
B.field4 = 'b';
I would like to have:
C.field1 = 1;
C.field2 = 'a';
C.field3 = 2;
C.field4 = 'b';
Is there a more efficient way than using "fieldnames" and a for loop?
EDIT: Let's assume that in the case of field name conflicts we give preference to A.
Without collisions, you can do
M = [fieldnames(A)' fieldnames(B)'; struct2cell(A)' struct2cell(B)'];
C=struct(M{:});
And this is reasonably efficient. However, struct errors on duplicate fieldnames, and pre-checking for them using unique kills performance to the point that a loop is better. But here's what it would look like:
M = [fieldnames(A)' fieldnames(B)'; struct2cell(A)' struct2cell(B)'];
[tmp, rows] = unique(M(1,:), 'last');
M=M(:, rows);
C=struct(M{:});
You might be able to make a hybrid solution by assuming no conflicts and using a try/catch around the call to struct to gracefully degrade to the conflict handling case.
Short answer: setstructfields (if you have the Signal Processing Toolbox).
The official solution is posted by Loren Shure on her MathWorks blog, and demonstrated by SCFrench here and in Eitan T's answer to a different question. However, if you have the Signal Processing Toolbox, a simple undocumented function does this already - setstructfields.
help setstructfields
setstructfields Set fields of a structure using another structure
setstructfields(STRUCTIN, NEWFIELDS) Set fields of STRUCTIN using
another structure NEWFIELDS fields. If fields exist in STRUCTIN
but not in NEWFIELDS, they will not be changed.
Internally it uses fieldnames and a for loop, so it is a convenience function with error checking and recursion for fields that are themselves structs.
Example
The "original" struct:
% struct with fields 'color' and 'count'
s = struct('color','orange','count',2)
s =
color: 'orange'
count: 2
A second struct containing a new value for 'count', and a new field, 'shape':
% struct with fields 'count' and 'shape'
s2 = struct('count',4,'shape','round')
s2 =
count: 4
shape: 'round'
Calling setstructfields:
>> s = setstructfields(s,s2)
s =
color: 'orange'
count: 4
shape: 'round'
The field 'count' is updated. The field 'shape' is added. The field 'color' remains unchanged.
NOTE: Since the function is undocumented, it may change or be removed at any time.
I have found a nice solution on File Exchange: catstruct.
Without testing the performance I can say that it did exactly what I wanted.
It can deal with duplicate fields of course.
Here is how it works:
a.f1 = 1;
a.f2 = 2;
b.f2 = 3;
b.f4 = 4;
s = catstruct(a,b)
Will give
s =
f1: 1
f2: 3
f3: 4
I don't think you can handle conflicts well w/o a loop, nor do I think you'd need to avoid one. (although I suppose efficiency could be an issue w/ many many fields...)
I use a function I wrote a few years back called setdefaults.m, which combines one structure with the values of another structure, where one takes precedence over the other in case of conflict.
% SETDEFAULTS sets the default structure values
% SOUT = SETDEFAULTS(S, SDEF) reproduces in S
% all the structure fields, and their values, that exist in
% SDEF that do not exist in S.
% SOUT = SETDEFAULTS(S, SDEF, OVERRIDE) does
% the same function as above, but if OVERRIDE is 1,
% it copies all fields of SDEF to SOUT.
function sout = setdefaults(s,sdef,override)
if (not(exist('override','var')))
override = 0;
end
sout = s;
for f = fieldnames(sdef)'
cf = char(f);
if (override | not(isfield(sout,cf)))
sout = setfield(sout,cf,getfield(sdef,cf));
end
end
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure that the "override" input is unnecessary (you can just switch the order of the inputs) though I'm not 100% sure of that... so here's a simpler rewrite (setdefaults2.m):
% SETDEFAULTS2 sets the default structure values
% SOUT = SETDEFAULTS(S, SDEF) reproduces in S
% all the structure fields, and their values, that exist in
% SDEF that do not exist in S.
function sout = setdefaults2(s,sdef)
sout = sdef;
for f = fieldnames(s)'
sout = setfield(sout,f{1},getfield(s,f{1}));
end
and some samples to test it:
>> S1 = struct('a',1,'b',2,'c',3);
>> S2 = struct('b',4,'c',5,'d',6);
>> setdefaults2(S1,S2)
ans =
b: 2
c: 3
d: 6
a: 1
>> setdefaults2(S2,S1)
ans =
a: 1
b: 4
c: 5
d: 6
In C, a struct can have another struct as one of it's members. While this isn't exactly the same as what you're asking, you could end up either with a situation where one struct contains another, or one struct contains two structs, both of which hold parts of the info that you wanted.
psuedocode: i don't remember the actual syntax.
A.field1 = 1;
A.field2 = 'a';
A.field3 = struct B;
to access:
A.field3.field4;
or something of the sort.
Or you could have struct C hold both an A and a B:
C.A = struct A;
C.B = struct B;
with access then something like
C.A.field1;
C.A.field2;
C.B.field3;
C.B.field4;
hope this helps!
EDIT: both of these solutions avoid naming collisions.
Also, I didn't see your matlab tag. By convention, you should want to edit the question to include that piece of info.