What is the best way to get the name of a variable in a script?

What is the best way to get the name of a variable in a script?

The below code works but I am wondering if there is a built-in function that does this:

   getname = @(x) inputname(1);
   var = 75;
   name = getname(var);

The reason I want the name of a variable is I don't want to hard code the name of a variable into a save command like this:

   save('Myfile.mat', 'var');

This seems better:

   save('Myfile.mat', getname(var));

When you rename a variable, the hard coded save command breaks.

[Stephen23]

+1 for a neat solution: save('Myfile.mat',getname(var));

Answer 1

[Guillaume]

No, there is no built-in function and your way is actually clever.

And yes, the fact that load and save require variable names instead of the variable themselves feels awkward and prevent easy refactorisation.

Of course, if you go your way, you have to make sure that the code that reads the mat file can cope with changing variable names

Answer 2

[Oleksandr Slovak]

You can use inputname function for that:

aaa = 16;

safe_any_variable(aaa)

function safe_any_variable(variable_by_value)

variable_name = inputname(1);
mfile_name = [variable_name, '.mat'];

evalin('base', "save('" + mfile_name + "', '" + variable_name + "');");

end