Best practice for saving only one output from a vector-outputting function

What's the proper way to request only one variable from a vector outputting function, i.e.

[WantThis DontWantThis] = myfun(x, y, ... )

In the past I've just saved the DontWantThis output as a variable called trash and not made reference to it again. This seems rather unprofessional. Is there a cleaner way?

Answer 1

[Cedric]

Simply

 WantThis = myfun(x, y, ... )

if you just need/want the first output. More generally

 [a, b, c, d] = myfun(x, y, ... )

even if there could be more output args ( e, f, g, ..).

If don't want to name args that you don't need, which are preceding args that you do need, you can use ~ as a placeholder:

 [~, ~, c, ~, e] = myfun(x, y, ... )

Note that ~ is supported since 2009 if I remember well (edit: ref).

[Rylan]

It was the placeholder tilde I was looking for. Thanks!

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

You can replace it with a tilde (~)

[WantThis ~] = myfun(x, y, ... )

or just leave it off entirely

WantThis = myfun(x, y, ... )

In the above case, DontWantThis will be thrown away, essentially not returned. I think most people use this latter way, though it can only be used for ignoring return arguments to the right. In other words if you just put one return value:

theOutput = myfun(x, y, ... )

theOutput will be WantThis, not DonotWantThis. Understand?