How to manage a list of variables with parameters?

I need to keep track of a list of variables and their parameters, for example one variable might be 'Students' and the parameters might be 'Grades', 'Absences', and 'Age' . Another variable might be 'Teachers' and the parameters might be 'Salary' and 'Classes'. What is the best way to keep track of these strings? Create a cell array? I do not need to assign values at the present, I just want to keep track of which parameters go with which variables.

Answer 1

[Daniel Shub]

This seems to be what classes are perfect for.

classdef students
  properties
    Grades;
    Absences;
    ...

[K E]

Thanks so much. Had never even heard of them.

Answer 2

[Sean de Wolski]

I would use a struct

Students = struct('Grades',{'A';'B'},'Absences',[4;11])

etc.

doc struct

for more info

Answer 3

[Laura Proctor]

You may want to check out structures or datasets.

Here is a blog article that goes into a little more detail.

If you use a structure, for example, you would have the variable named Students, and the fields would be Grades, Absences and Age. If you wanted to recall all the fields, just use the fieldnames function.

Both are very useful, and I think they will work for what you want. If you wanted to get more fancy, you could create your own class objects with the parameters as properties.

[K E]

Useful extra resources, thanks

Answer 4

[Fangjun Jiang]

use dataset() or structure

Student=cell2struct(repmat({[]},3,1),{'Grades','Absense','Age'},1)
StudentProperty=fieldnames(Student)