Hi, i have cell that consisting string value.i want to use every cell element as variable name. for example filename{1}= [1 2 3] then i have EX1=[1 2 3] in work space. i wrote this code but it doesn't work.

filename={'EX1','EX2','FX1','FX2','PR1','PR2',...
 'RU1','RU2','SP1','SP2','UL1','UL2'};
for i=1:12
genvarname(filename{i})) =importdata([filename{i},'.mat']);
end

[KSSV]

There is no extension in the file name?

[Stephen23]

@KSSV: the code shows .mat

@ali jafari: what you are trying to do is not recommended. Creating or accessing variable names in a loop is how beginners force themselves into writing slow, complex, buggy code that is hard to debug. Read this to know why:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/304528-tutorial-why-variables-should-not-be-named-dynamically-eval

However you can easily use indexing and one array (e.g. a cell array). Indexing is simple, neat, very efficient, and easy to debug.

[Guillaume]

So, you're having difficulty generating dynamic variable names. Even if we told you how to do it, you would have the exact same difficulties every time you want to use these variable names. The only good answer to your question is don't do that.

I'm sure Stephen will answer your question with his very detailed explanation of why it's a bad idea. Please follow that advice.

[ali jafari]

Thank you for your advice.

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

As an alternative to magically creating variable names (which is not recommended), you can very simply define a structure and dynamically create the fieldnames:

C = {'EX1','EX2','FX1','FX2','PR1','PR2','RU1','RU2','SP1','SP2','UL1','UL2'};
S = struct();
for k = 1:numel(C)
    S.(C{k}) = importdata(sprintf('%s.mat',C{k}));
end

and then accessing your data is also very simple and efficient:

S.EX1
S.EX2
S.FX1
...  etc