what's a smarter way to associate numbers in an array to variable names?

I've asked this in the comments as a follow up to another question, but I think I broke etiquette because it wasn't related.. I'm reposting it here as a standalone question so hopefully others with similar queries can look at how something like this can be solved.

I’ve done a pretty ugly section of code that requires quite a bit of manual work, which is innocuous with 4 columns of random data, but would be a pain once I roll out the program to real data, of which I have tons. But ugly was all I was able to conjure up.

So, this:

[nRows, nCols] = size( data ) ;

combinations =nchoosek(1:nCols,2);

gives me an array of unique combinations:

1 2

1 3

1 4

2 3

2 4

3 4

In order to associate each number in array combinations to the variable names, where these are contained in array ‘headers’, from:

headers = raw(1,1:4);

I’ve done this:

Nrowscombinations=size(combinations,1);

Ncolumnscombinations=size(combinations,2);

nameVar = strings(Nrowscombinations,Ncolumnscombinations);

for iii=1 : Nrowscombinations

for jjj =1 : Ncolumnscombinations

if combinations(iii,jjj)==1

nameVar(iii,jjj)=headers{1,1};

end

if combinations(iii,jjj)==2

nameVar(iii,jjj)=headers{1,2};

end

if combinations(iii,jjj)==3

nameVar(iii,jjj) = headers{1,3};

end

if combinations(iii,jjj)==4

nameVar(iii,jjj)=headers{1,4};

end

end

end

And nameVar is what I want, a 6x2 array of strings containing:

X Y

X V

X Z

Y V

Y Z

V Z

Which is what I want.

Is there an intelligent way of doing this, one that wouldn’t have me manually insert that co-ordinates and the numbers like that –you can imagine how hideous this becomes with hundreds of variables?