Tall arrays are not allowed to contain data of type struct

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I am having trouble with tall arrays in the following workflow,
  • Process data in a loop. In each iteration, generate structure containing results and save structure in a *.mat file
  • Read all *.mat files into a datastore
  • Turn datastore into a tall array. Gives the error "Tall arrays are not allowed to contain data of type struct"
  • Turn tall array into a timetable
Here's an example, which I generated by modifying Edric Ellis's answer here. Can you help me eliminate the error?
%% Setup
nRowLimit = 100; % Number of records in each file
nCalculation = 20; % Number of calculation iterations and also mat files
tStart = datetime(2013, 11, 1, 8, 0, 0); % For later use in generating datetime array
%% Prepare to save matlab files
iFileToSave = 0;
dirSave = 'c:\temp';
%%
for iCalc = 1:nCalculation % Loop through iterations of the calculation
clear StrucResults; % Structure to hold results of calculations
% Generate structure containing pretend calculation results
for iRow = 1:nRowLimit
% Generate example datetime to fill a datetime array
StrucResults.date(iRow) = tStart + 1000*iFileToSave + iRow;
% Generate example character to fill a cell array
StrucResults.label{iRow} = char(round(rand(1)*100));
% Generate example value to fill a numerical matrix
StrucResults.white(iRow, :) = rand(1, 5);
end
%% Save structure containing results to small mat file
iFileToSave = iFileToSave + 1;
% Make a distinct file name
fileSave = fullfile(dirSave, sprintf('FileContainingStruct_%05d.mat', iFileToSave));
save(fileSave, 'StrucResults');
end
%% Read the data back in as a tall array
% First create a datastore from all the mat files
fds = fileDatastore(fullfile(dirSave, '*.mat'), ... % Files to load
'ReadFcn', @(x)struct2table(load(x)), ... % Try to convert structure to table to avoid error in next code line
'UniformRead', true);
% Read into a tall array
tallData = tall(fds); % Throws error "Tall arrays are not allowed to contain data of type struct"
% Change to a tall timetable
tallTimeTable = table2timetable(tallData);
It's fine to eliminate the structure in favor of storing the results in individual variables, but I couldn't get that to work either.

Accepted Answer

Edric Ellis
Edric Ellis on 23 Apr 2021
Your code was so nearly working. I made two tiny changes, marked with %###:
%% Setup
nRowLimit = 100; % Number of records in each file
nCalculation = 20; % Number of calculation iterations and also mat files
tStart = datetime(2013, 11, 1, 8, 0, 0); % For later use in generating datetime array
%% Prepare to save matlab files
iFileToSave = 0;
dirSave = fullfile(tempdir(), '809910');
if ~exist(dirSave, 'dir')
mkdir(dirSave);
end
%%
for iCalc = 1:nCalculation % Loop through iterations of the calculation
clear StrucResults; % Structure to hold results of calculations
% Generate structure containing pretend calculation results
%### Ensure vector fields are columns
for iRow = 1:nRowLimit
% Generate example datetime to fill a datetime array
StrucResults.date(iRow, 1) = tStart + 1000*iFileToSave + iRow;
% Generate example character to fill a cell array
StrucResults.label{iRow, 1} = char(round(rand(1)*100));
% Generate example value to fill a numerical matrix
StrucResults.white(iRow, :) = rand(1, 5);
end
%% Save structure containing results to small mat file
iFileToSave = iFileToSave + 1;
% Make a distinct file name
fileSave = fullfile(dirSave, sprintf('FileContainingStruct_%05d.mat', iFileToSave));
%### Use "save -struct" to ensure the fields of StrucResults are saved into the file directly.
save(fileSave, '-struct', 'StrucResults');
end
%% Read the data back in as a tall array
% First create a datastore from all the mat files
fds = fileDatastore(fullfile(dirSave, '*.mat'), ... % Files to load
'ReadFcn', @(x)struct2table(load(x)), ... % Try to convert structure to table to avoid error in next code line
'UniformRead', true);
% Read into a tall array
tallData = tall(fds); % Throws error "Tall arrays are not allowed to contain data of type struct"
% Change to a tall timetable
tallTimeTable = table2timetable(tallData);
% Check the results
head(tallTimeTable)
ans = 8×2 tall timetable date label white ____________________ _____ ________________________________________________________ 02-Nov-2013 08:00:00 {''} 0.24734 0.82558 0.41452 0.3178 0.41834 03-Nov-2013 08:00:00 {'B'} 0.49954 0.61133 0.76577 0.67823 0.50137 04-Nov-2013 08:00:00 {''} 0.099728 0.28918 0.42864 0.62252 0.61956 05-Nov-2013 08:00:00 {'H'} 0.67335 0.32173 0.25268 0.057868 0.17846 06-Nov-2013 08:00:00 {''} 0.82981 0.059187 0.34086 0.31046 0.25538 07-Nov-2013 08:00:00 {'@'} 0.53214 0.78883 0.30166 0.77258 0.68763 08-Nov-2013 08:00:00 {'Y'} 0.37458 0.19037 0.75301 0.62862 0.85332 09-Nov-2013 08:00:00 {'8'} 0.27491 0.22561 0.12215 0.46316 0.66067
The first change was simply to ensure that the vectors in the struct were columns.
The second more important change was to use save -struct to get rid of the extra layer of "struct" in the MAT file.

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