Using loop to create multiple variables

Say I wanted to create 16 variables: x1, x2, ... x16. Each x variable is equal to b1, b2, ... b16 * some scalar A. Could I use a for loop to accomplish this task? I was thinking along the lines of:

for i = 1:1:16

x_i = b_i * A

i = i+1

end

But this won't work.

[Stephen23]

"Say I wanted to create 16 variables: x1, x2, ... x16. Each x variable is equal to b1, b2, ... b16 * some scalar A."

That would not be a very good use of MATLAB. The MATLAB documentation states "A frequent use of the eval function is to create sets of variables such as A1, A2, ..., An, but this approach does not use the array processing power of MATLAB and is not recommended. The preferred method is to store related data in a single array."

Source: https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_prog/string-evaluation.html

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

Storing data in one array makes it easy to write simple and efficient MATLAB code. Is there are a particular reason why you want to make your task complex and inefficient? What are you actually trying to achieve here? What is the goal?

http://xyproblem.info/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem

Answer 1

[Sudhakar Shinde]

you can try this:

%b is a vector contains values from 1,2,3....to 16.
b = 1:16;
A=2;  % A is a scalr whose value is 2
for i = 1:1:16
x(i) = b(i) * A; 
i = i+1;
end

[Stephen23]

Or the MATLAB way:

x = A.*b;

[Carson Wallace]

Thank you. This answers my question.