How to define a structure fieldname from a cell contains a string value?

Dear All:

I am having trouble to define structure fieldnames from a cell array that contains the names as string values:

select = [{'NAME'},     {'VALUE'};
            {'alpha'},       0.4;          
            {'sigmaL'},      1;       
            {'beta'},        0.98];

and in a loop I want to create a structure from the cell array (select) with field name as in the first column and value in the second column if certain criteria is met. I have tried setfield and struct command, but in all cases the 'fieldname' input does not like I reference to the cell array (eg: select(1,3)), and ask for a proper string within quotation marks.

I want to ask how to create a structure by referencing to cell arrays? (In my case is create something like structure.alpha = 0.4 by referencing to select?)

Thank you very much in advance for your help.

Cheers

Ben

Answer 1

[Matt Fig]

Instead of using EVAL, use dynamic fieldnames....

select = [{'NAME'},     {'VALUE'};
            {'alpha'},       0.4;          
            {'sigmaL'},      1;       
            {'beta'},        0.98];

for ii = 1:size(select,1)
    S.(select{ii,1}) = select{ii,2};
end

Now you have a structure S. You might get a warning because the fieldname alpha is the same as the MATLAB function ALPHA. Note that using CELL2STRUCT is preferred here, as Oleg shows...

Answer 2

[Ben Wang]

Thank you all for your help! It solved my problem perfectly!

Cheers

Ben

Answer 3

[Paulo Silva]

select = [{'NAME'},     {'VALUE'};
            {'alpha'},       0.4;          
            {'sigmaL'},      1;       
            {'beta'},        0.98];

for a=2:size(select,1)
eval(sprintf('MyStruct.%s=%d',select{a,1},select{a,2}));
end

MyStruct

or

MyStruct=struct();
for a=2:size(select,1)
MyStruct=setfield(MyStruct, select{a,1}, select{a,2});
end

MyStruct

Answer 4

[Walter Roberson]

struct(select{3,1}, select{3,2})

Remember, select(1,3) is the (non-existent) third column of the first row of the array select.

Answer 5

[Oleg Komarov]

cell2struct(select(2:end,2),select(2:end,1))