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How do I rename fields of a structure array?

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Say I have a structure array such as
A =
1x49 struct array with fields:
a
b
c
d
How do I rename the structure fields? Such as
A =
1x49 struct array with fields:
aa
ba
ca
da
  4 Commenti
Steven Lord
Steven Lord il 9 Gen 2024
Modificato: Steven Lord il 9 Gen 2024
To officially submit this as an enhancement request please contact Technical Support directly using this link. When you do, please mention the circumstances in which you'd want to use this functionality if it existed.
  • Would you need it to support non-scalar struct arrays?
  • Would you need it to be able to rename one field at a time or renaming a collection of fields all at once?
  • How would you expect it to operate if you tried to rename a field to a field name that already exists in the struct? Error, warn and do nothing, overwrite, try to merge them somehow, etc.?
  • Do you need it to be able to operate over multiple levels? If you had a struct a with fields b and c where b was itself a struct array with field d, would you expect to be able to change both a.c and a.b.d in one call (assuming the answer to my second question was "renaming a collection of fields all at once")?

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Risposta accettata

Walter Roberson
Walter Roberson il 17 Mar 2016
struct2cell( cell2struct(A), {'aa', 'ba', 'ca', 'da'})
  5 Commenti
Guillaume
Guillaume il 18 Mar 2016
Modificato: Guillaume il 18 Mar 2016
This is probably the most straightforward method. For safety, as there's no guarantee that the fields in the original structure are ordered alphabetically, I'd use:
cell2struct(struct2cell(ordefields(A)), {'aa', 'ba', 'ca', da'})
Note that this will cope with structure arrays as well.
Christian Svensson
Christian Svensson il 27 Nov 2019
Modificato: Christian Svensson il 27 Nov 2019
I encountered this problem recently, for completeness I'll add my solution. Assuming that you want to add the same suffix to all fieldnames, you can use
cell2struct(struct2cell(A), strcat(fieldnames(A), 'a'))
Note that fieldnames and struct2cell return the field names and the values in the same order, so no sorting is needed.

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Più risposte (7)

Jos (10584)
Jos (10584) il 17 Mar 2016
There is a somewhat hidden function called renameStructField, that can do the job, perhaps within a loop.
Or use dynamic field names and copy the fields into a new structure. This makes code quite readable and bug proof.
oldnames = {'a','b','c'}
newnames = {'aa','test','cXY'}
for k=1:number(oldnames)
Snew.(newnames{k}) = Sold.(oldnames{k}) ;
end
  3 Commenti
John Petersen
John Petersen il 17 Mar 2016
Right, this does not work for a structured array. Do you know what 'tweaking' would make it work?
Jos (10584)
Jos (10584) il 18 Mar 2016
Use deal (see my other answer)

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Sriram Nayak
Sriram Nayak il 18 Apr 2020
Modificato: Walter Roberson il 6 Mar 2024
function structOut = renamefield(structIn, oldField, newField)
for i = 1:length(structIn)
structIn = setfield(structIn,{i},newField,getfield(structIn(i),oldField));
end
structOut = rmfield(structIn,oldField);
end
  1 Commento
Walter Roberson
Walter Roberson il 6 Mar 2024
This will fail if the new field names happen to include some of the old field names. For example
a -> aa
b -> a

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Jos (10584)
Jos (10584) il 18 Mar 2016
You can use DEAL and a for-loop to change fieldnames:
% create a structure array, with different fields
for k=1:10,
Sold(k) = struct('a',k,'b',1:k','c',sprintf('test%02d',k)) ;
end
% engine
oldnames = {'a','b','c'}
newnames = {'aa','test','cXY'}
N = numel(Sold)
for k=1:numel(oldnames)
[Snew(1:N).(newnames{k})] = deal(Sold.(oldnames{k})) ;
end

Teresa Martinez
Teresa Martinez il 26 Mag 2021
Create new fields with the same data:
A.aa = A.a;
A.ba = A.b;
and remove the old ones:
A = rmfield(A,'a');
A = rmfield(A,'b');

Jan
Jan il 8 Giu 2022
Although this thread is old, it has a lot of views and it is worth to mention this implementation as fast C-Mex:

Leon
Leon il 7 Gen 2024
Modificato: Leon il 7 Gen 2024
Until Matlab (hopefully) introduces a rename field function, I would convert to a table then use renamevars() and then convert back to a struct. E.g., where S is your struct:
T = struct2table(S);
T = renamevars(T, 'Old_Name', 'New_Name');
S = table2struct(T);
Or, as one line:
S = table2struct(renamevars(struct2table(S), 'Old_Name', 'New_Name'));
An advantage of this over converting to a cell array and back is that you don't need to worry about the names of the other fieldnames, or know what number the field is, etc. You can still rename several fields at once when using renamevars. Also, since each variable in a Matlab table has to maintain the same value for all rows, it should be much more efficient memory-wise than converting a large struct into a cell array and back (where each cell can be of any type and that type must be stored), but I haven't done any tests.
Actually, once you have converted to a table, you may want to have a good think about whether it makes sense to convert it back into a struct: it is often more comfortable to work with tables, and they can be more efficient memory-wise. Apart from better memory use and functions like renamevars, there are neat features like being able to have several variable names under one column.
Or try the C-Mex "renamefield" on Matlab file exchange, as Jan suggested.
  5 Commenti
Stephen23
Stephen23 il 9 Mar 2024
"I'm surpised Matlab isn't smart enough to just keep the columns as cell type."
They aren't cell type.

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Ethan Montag
Ethan Montag il 14 Mag 2024
If you open the structure to view in a window, you can manually change the name ot the field manually by double clicking on it.
When you do this, the code that produced the change is shown in the Command Window:
[structName.newName] = structName.oldName;
% This adds a new field, newName, with the same data as in the field oldName
structName = orderfields(structName,[1:3,12,4:11]);
% In this example, there are 11 fields and I changed the name of the 4th field.
%This command reorders the new field into the place of the old field.
structName = rmfield(structName,'oldName');
% This removes the old field

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