Matlab dynamic fieldnames structure with cell arrays - matlab

How can i access the following structure path with dynamic fieldnames:
var = 'refxtree.CaseDefinition.FlowSheetObjects.MaterialStreamObjects{8}.MaterialStreamObjectParams.Pressure.Value.Text';
fields = textscan(var,'%s','Delimiter','.');
refxtree.(fields{:}) does not work because MaterialStreamObjects contains a cell array of which I want to access the 8th cell and then continue down the structure path.
In the end I want to get and set the fieldvalues.

You need to build the appropriate input to subsref, possibly using substruct. Look at the MATLAB help.

You can define an anonymous function to navigate this particular kind of structure of the form top.field1.field2.field3{item}.field4.field5.field6.field7 (as an aside: is it really necessary to have such a complicated structure?).
getField = #(top,fields,item)top.(fields{1}).(fields{2}).(fields{3}){item}.(fields{4}).(fields{5}).(fields{6}).(fields{7})
setField = #(top,fields,item,val)subsasgn(top.(fields{1}).(fields{2}).(fields{3}){item}.(fields{4}).(fields{5}).(fields{6}),struct('type','.','subs',fields{7}),val);
You use the functions by calling
fieldValue = getField(refxtree,fields,8);
setField(refxtree,fields,8,newFieldValue);
Note that fields is required to have seven elements. If you want to generalize the above, you will have to dynamically create the above functions

In this case, it is easier to just use EVAL:
str = 'refxtree.CaseDefinition.FlowSheetObjects.MaterialStreamObjects{8}.MaterialStreamObjectParams.Pressure.Value.Text';
%# get
x = eval(str)
%# set
evalc([str ' = 99']);

Related

MATLAB: Pass part of structure field name to function

I need to pass a part of a structure's name into a function.
Examples of a available structs:
systems.system1.stats.equityCurve.relative.exFee
systems.system1.stats.equityCurve.relative.inFee
systems.system2.stats.equityCurve.relative.exFee
systems.system2.stats.equityCurve.relative.inFee
systems.system1.returns.aggregated.exFee
systems.system1.returns.aggregated.inFee
systems.system2.returns.aggregated.exFee
systems.system2.returns.aggregated.inFee
... This goes on...
Within a function, I loop through the structure as follows:
function mat = test(fNames)
feeString = {'exFee', 'inFee'};
sysNames = {'system1', 'system2'};
for n = 1 : 2
mat{n} = systems.(sysNames{n}).stats.equityCurve.relative.(feeString{n});
end
end
What I like to handle in a flexible way within the loop is the middle part, i.e. the part after systems.(sysNames{n}) and before .(feeString{n}) (compare examples).
I am now looking for a way to pass the middle part as an input argument fNames into the function. The loop should than contain something like
mat{n} = systems.(sysNames{n}).(fName).(feeString{n});
How about using a helper function such as
function rec_stru = recSA(stru, field_names)
if numel(field_names) == 1
rec_stru = stru.(field_names{1});
else
rec_stru = recSA(stru.(field_names{1}), field_names(2:end));
end
This function takes the intermediate field names as a cell array.
This would turn this statement:
mat{n} = systems.(sysNames{n}).stats.equityCurve.relative.(feeString{n});
into
mat{n} = recSA(systems.(sysNames{n}), {'stats', 'equityCurve', 'relative', feeString{n}});
The first part of the cell array could then be passed as an argument to the function.
This is one of those cases where matlab is a bit unhelpful in the documentation. There is a way to use the fieldnames function in matlab to get the list of all the fields and iterate over that using dynamic fields.
systems.system1.stats.equityCurve.relative.exFee='T'
systems.system1.stats.equityCurve.relative.inFee='E'
systems.system2.stats.equityCurve.relative.exFee='S'
systems.system2.stats.equityCurve.relative.inFee='T'
systems.system1.returns.aggregated.exFee='D'
systems.system1.returns.aggregated.inFee='A'
systems.system2.returns.aggregated.exFee='T'
systems.system2.returns.aggregated.inFee='A'
dynamicvariable=fieldnames(systems.system1)
This will return a cell matrix of the field names which you can use to iterate over.
systems.system1.(dynamicvariable{1})
ans =
equityCurve: [1x1 struct]
Ideally you would have your data structure fixed in such a way that you know how many levels of depth are in your data structure.

Matlab: iterate over multiple structs

I have 5 Matlab structs. I would like to iterate over them. My current solution is the following:
all_structs = [struct1,struct2,struct3,struct4,struct5];
for single_struct = all_structs
% do stuff to each struct here
end
However, each of the structs above has a matrix with a lot of data (including some other properties). Also, whatever I change in the single_struct is not passed back to the original struct.
Question: How do I fix that? Does Matlab copy all that data again when I create the vector all_structs? Or is the data from each of the structs (struct1,...,struct5) passed by reference? Is there a better way to iterate over multiple structs?
Thanks for helping!
struct will not be passed by reference. You will need to loop over the elements in all_structs using an index and then access and modify using that index. If you need something to be treated as reference you will need to define a class for it and make the class inherit from handle. Suggested reading
for i = 1:numel(all_structs)
% do stuff to each struct here
all_structs(i).data = ones(10,5); % your code here
end
I would suggest also reading on arrayfun, though it is useful if you want to do an operation and get results. From your description it sounds like you want to modify the structs.
In case you want to modify content of original structs, without making a copy, you can use a cell array of structs names.
Then iterate the names, and use eval to modify the content.
Using eval is inefficient, so don't make it a habit...
See the following code sample:
%Create sample structs (each struct has a data element).
struct1.data = 1;
struct2.data = 2;
struct3.data = 3;
%Create a cell array containing structs names as strings.
struct_names = {'struct1', 'struct2', 'struct3'};
%Iterate all structs names
%Modify data elements of each struct using eval.
for i = 1:length(struct_names)
sname = struct_names{i}; %Get struct name from cell array.
%Evaluate a string like: 'struct1.data = struct1.data + 1;'
eval([sname, '.data = ', sname, '.data + 1;']);
end

read data from a structure in matlab

I have to load some data in a structure.
I do it inside a function.
assuming that my structure is called
loaddata
and the data are in
loaddata.corrected_data
how can I access to it within a function?
function loaddata_struct(path,namestruct)
loaddata = load(path);
data = loaddata.corrected_data; % this should change depending on the argument of the function (namestruct in this case)
end
how can I pass the name of the structure? in this case corrected_data...
You can use dynamic field names like so:
fieldOfInterest = 'corrected_data';
data = loaddata.(fieldOfInterest);
If you're loading from file, you can also access the data directly
data = load('theDataFile.mat','-mat',fieldOfInterest)
The following code will return the structure's field with the name passed to loaddata_struct function:
function data = loaddata_struct(path,namestruct)
loaddata = load(path);
data = loaddata.(namestruct);
end
Use getfield and if you need to work on a 1 x N sized struct array -
function loaddata_struct(path,fname)
loaddata = load(path);
for k1 = 1:numel(loaddata)
data{k1} = getfield(loaddata(k1),fname);
end
return;
Thus, you can use it like this - loaddata_struct(path,'corrected_data')
Do it as text and use isfield and eval. Isfield will check if the string is a field of the struct, and if it is, then use eval to evaluate loaddata.fieldname. Using isfield you make sure you never get an error, and you can do things in the else, like finding the data that has the most similar name to the one inserted, for example.
function loaddata_struct(path,fieldname)
loaddata = load(path);
if isfield(loaddata ,fieldname)
data = eval(strcat('loaddata.',fieldname));
else
error('Heeey mate, thats not a field')
end
end

Accessing Matlab Struct Field with General Function

I'm trying to automate a process for getting information out of an array of structs.
I have the following code:
function [data] = extractData(struct,str)
data = {};
for i = 1:length(struct)
data{i} = struct(i).str;
end
The problem is that I want to provide the str value referring to a pre-determined field. In it's current form, it won't accept str and say "str is an unknown field."
The easiest way to do this would to use:
function data = extractData(struct)
str = fieldnames(struct);
data = {};
for i = 1:numel(str)
data{i} = struct.(str{i});
end
end
You may also want to consider a few different things here. First, you may want to change the name of your struct to a different name as was said above. Also you might want to look into cell arrays. Cell arrays can hold variables of different types and lengths and are easier you use.

Outputting data from for loop to .mat file using numbers in title MATLAB

I need to output .mat files for the below data. I need one file to have cell (1,1) to be Mean_RPM_list1, cell (2,1) to be Mean_RPM_list2 etc. And then I need another file to have cell(1,1) to be Mean_Torque_list1 to have cell(1,1).....and so on.
Can anybody shed any light on this for me?
Also if someone knows how to automate me calling the matrices A and B so I could have A = [Mean_rpm1:Mean_rpmMAX], that would also be very helpful.
TIA for any help.
A = [Mean_rpm1 Mean_rpm2 Mean_rpm3 Mean_rpm4 Mean_rpm5 Mean_rpm6 Mean_rpm7 Mean_rpm8 Mean_rpm9 Mean_rpm10 Mean_rpm11 Mean_rpm12];
B = [Mean_torque1 Mean_torque2 Mean_torque3 Mean_torque4 Mean_torque5 Mean_torque6 Mean_torque7 Mean_torque8 Mean_torque9 Mean_torque10 Mean_torque11 Mean_torque12];
plot(A,B,'*')
for i = 1:num_bins;
bin = first + ((i-1)/10);
eval(sprintf('Mean_RPM_list%0.f = A;',bin*10));
eval(sprintf('Mean_Torque_list%0.f = B;',bin*10));
end
First of all this is really bad idea to create a set of variables with names different by numbers. As you can see it's very difficult to deal with such variables, you always have to use eval (or other related) statements.
It's much easier to create a cell array Mean_rpm and access its elements as Mean_rpm{1}, etc.
If the vectors are numeric and have the same size you can also make a 2D/3D array. Then access as Mean_rpm(:,:,1) etc.
Next, to store a cell array to a mat-file you have to create this array in MATLAB. No options (at least for now) to do it by parts in a loop. (But you can do it for numeric vectors and matrices using matfile object.) So why do you need this intermediate Mean_RPM_list variable? Just do Mean_RPM_list{bin*10} = A in your loop.
For your first question, if you already have those variables you have to use eval in a loop. Something like
A = [];
for k=1:K
eval(sprintf('A{k} = [A, Mean_rpm%d];',k));
end
You can also get names for all similar variables and combine them.
varlist = who('Mean_rpm*');
A = cell(1,numel(varlist);
for k = 1:numel(varlist)
eval('A{k} = varlist{k};');
end
Here is one without loop using CELL2FUN:
A=cellfun(#(x)evalin('base',x),varlist,'UniformOutput',0);
You should avoid having all these individual variables around in the first place. Data types like arrays, cell arrays and structure arrays exist to help you with this. If you want each variable to be associated with a name, you can use a structure array. I've made an example below. Instead of assigning a value to Mean_rpm1 like you are doing now, assign it to meanStruct.Mean_rpm1 then save the entire structure.
% as you generate values for each variable, assign them to the
% appropriate field.
meanStruct.Mean_rpm1 = [10:10];
meanStruct.Mean_rpm2 = [12:15];
meanStruct.Mean_rpm3 = [13:20];
meanStruct.Mean_rpm4 = [14];
meanStruct.Mean_rpm5 = [15:18];
meanStruct.Mean_rpm6 = [16:20];
meanStruct.Mean_rpm7 = [17:22];
meanStruct.Mean_rpm8 = [18:22];
meanStruct.Mean_rpm9 = [19:22];
meanStruct.Mean_rpm10 = [20:22];
meanStruct.Mean_rpm11 = [21:22];
meanStruct.Mean_rpm12 = [22:23];
% save the structure array
save('meanValues.mat','meanStruct')
% load and access the structure array
clear all
load('meanValues.mat')
temp = meanStruct.Mean_rpm3