Putting the result from eval into a cell array

Got the piece of code below. Basically, when I run it I get x_1 all the way to x_600 so i get 600 outputs I would like to put all of these into a cell array does anyone know how to do this cause I've failed at every attempt?

count=1;
for i=1:600
  
    G = [ F(i)+1 , F(i+1) ];
    a = unwrap(B);
    eval(['x_' num2str(count) ' = a;']);
    count=count+1;
    
end

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

N = 600;
C = cell(1,N); % preallocate.
for k = 1:N
    G = [F(k)+1,F(k+1)]; % you never use G anywhere in your code...
    C{K} = unwrap(B);    % where is B defined?
end

"...I've failed at every attempt"

Because you picked a complex, slow, inefficient approach (using eval to create lots of variables), as opposed to simply using a cell array in the first place.

[TADA]

remember the rule that eval is EVIL

[Nikolaos Zafirakis]

Hello Stephan,

I need the eval function in the code cause im splitting up, the resulting x_ values I get 600 x_ values which I need to put into one array made up of cells?

B(:,1:3);

[TADA]

good code design and practice would make eval unnecessary

[Stephen23]

"I need the eval function in the code cause im splitting up, the resulting x_ values I get 600 x_ values ..."

Nothing in your question or comments explains why you "need the eval function". You can "split up" data using num2cell or mat2cell or accumarray or arrayfun or other functions. Please show an example of the exact "split" that you need to perform.

"...which I need to put into one array made up of cells?"

Putting data into a cell array is easy using indexing, just as my answer shows. If you showed an example (with input and output arrays) then we can show you how to achieve it.

[Nikolaos Zafirakis]

Hope this shows what I mean,

B = (:,1:3);  %Measurements
C = (:,1); % Measurements in a list of groups etc. 0-55 , 56-101,101-109 ....
[ D, E ] = find( C == 0 );  % D when zero occuers so batch starts
F = D - 1;                  % F when batch finishes
count=1;
for i=1:600
      G = [ F(i)+1 , F(i+1) ];  % finding the begining and last point of each group
      a = unwrap(B(G(1):G(2),:)/2^15*pi)*2^15/pi;    % using unwrap
      eval(['x_' num2str(count) ' = a;']);    % Splits the outputs of the unwrap into seperate batches
       count=count+1;
end

[Rik]

You should store a in elements of a cell array, not try to call eval.

And this doesn't explain your goal, the reason why you think you need eval.

[Nikolaos Zafirakis]

So, if I run my unwrap function my measurements drift cause there are many. By using the loop and the eval I manage to run all the groups separately which I have not managed to do using some other code. The goal is to run the unwrap part through the code each individual batch and collect them at the output in the form of a cell array.

[TADA]

This example shows how using eval is unnecessary

% create mock data
B = linspace(0, 10*pi(), 20)';
C = (1:numel(B))';
C(randi(18, 1, 3)) = 0; % randomly pop zeros in there to start new batches

% find all batches start and end points
[ D, E ] = find( C == 0 );  % D when zero occuers so batch starts
if D(1) ~= 1
    D = [1; D]; % start from first index no matter what...
end
F = [D - 1; numel(B)];                  % F when batch finishes

% if you need it for something...
count = numel(D);

% prepare cell array with cells for all detected batches
x=cell(1, count);

% iterate through all batches and extract the data into cell array "x"
for i=1:count
    G = [ F(i)+1 , F(i+1) ];  % finding the begining and last point of each group
    
    % do your calculation - this line of code is perfectly fine,
    % although, the data could be stored directly into the cell array
    % instead of the temporary variable "a"
    a = unwrap(B(G(1):G(2),:)/2^15*pi)*2^15/pi;
    
    % this will set the output of your calculation directly into the cell array
    x{i} = a;
    
    % this will needlessly declare a new variable called "x_i"
    % where i is the current index
    eval(['x_' num2str(i) ' = a;']);    % Splits the outputs of the unwrap into seperate batches
end

celldisp(x);

x{1} =
 
         0
    1.6535
    3.3069
    4.9604

 
 
x{2} =
 
    6.6139
    8.2673
    9.9208

 
 
x{3} =
 
   11.5743
   13.2278
   14.8812
   16.5347
   18.1882
   19.8416
   21.4951

 
 
x{4} =
 
   23.1486
   24.8020
   26.4555
   28.1090
   29.7625
   31.4159
   
   
for i = 1:count
    fprintf('x_%d: ', i);
    fprintf('%d,', eval(['x_' num2str(i)]));
    disp(newline);
end


x_1: 0,1.653470e+00,3.306940e+00,4.960409e+00,

x_2: 6.613879e+00,8.267349e+00,9.920819e+00,

x_3: 1.157429e+01,1.322776e+01,1.488123e+01,1.653470e+01,1.818817e+01,1.984164e+01,2.149511e+01,

x_4: 2.314858e+01,2.480205e+01,2.645552e+01,2.810899e+01,2.976246e+01,3.141593e+01,

[TADA]

If you store data sets in arrays instead of indexed variables, you get only benefits:

• Less code which is more readable:

x{i} = unwrap(B(G(1):G(2),:)/2^15*pi)*2^15/pi;

% instead of
count = count+1;
a = unwrap(B(G(1):G(2),:)/2^15*pi)*2^15/pi;
eval(['x_' num2str(count) ' = a;']);

• No need to maintain a variable which counta your variables, simply use size(x) or numel(x)
• No workspace spamming with 600 variables, theres only one cell array,matrix,table,etc. So you can actually see what variables you have in your workspace window.
• Indexing performs way better than eval, several orders of magnitude better in fact

a = 1:100;

tic; 
for i = 1:10000; 
   x{i} = a;
end; 
toc;

    Elapsed time 0.002012 seconds

tic; 
for i = 1:10000; 
  eval(['x_' num2str(i) ' = a;']); 
end; 
toc;

    Elapsed time is 3.508633 seconds

Answer 2

[TADA]

please please please don't use eval to access varriable names

eval is not built for that, however, for some reason the first thing that new programmers of any scripting language learn is to use eval which results in code which is confusing, performs poorly and is impossible to decypher and maintain

remember the rule, eval is evil.

if you remember that and only result to using eval when you realy have to (i.e. never!), your programing would improve dramatically.

the good practice in that case would be to use matrices to store your data instead of separate variables (i.e X1 X2 X3), or if they are different sizes a cell array

% same size:
x = zeros(3, 100);
x(1,:) = 1:100;
x(2,:) = 101:200;
x(3,:) = 201:300;

% different sizes:
x = {};
x{1} = 1:100;
x{2} = 1:1000;
x{3} = 1:10000;

Now, if that piece of code was given to you by some blackbox script written by someone else and it requires hundreds of hours of rewriting, I agree the correct way to handle this would be to use eval and export the data into a reasonable format:

% code you got from someone else
X1 = 1:100;
X2 = 1:1000;
X3 = 1:10000;

% code that accesses these variables and fixes that
c = {};
for i = 1:3
    c{i} = eval(['X' num2str(i)]);
end