Including comments in a .mat file?

Is there any way to include comments (or similar) in a '.mat' file to indicate what the stored variables are?

Answer 1

[Jos (10584)]

Another option might be to use a structure:

A.values  = [21 22 35]
A.label   = 'temperature'
A.unit   = 'degrees Celsius'
A.comment = 'measured with Pete''s device'

Answer 2

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

You can get those information. Look at this example

a=1;
b=2;
c=3;
save filename a b c
clear;
load filename
whos -file filename.mat

%or

data=load('filename')
var_names=fields(data)

[John Jendzurski]

Thank you, Azzi. I should have been clearer in my original question. I not only want to know the names of the variables but also some descriptive information about the variables, eg. how the data was collected, what the variables represent, etc...something similar to comments that may be used in '.m' files.

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

Save with your data a string that contains your informations

a=1;
b=2;
c=3;
infos={'a is ' ; 'b is ' ;'c is ';' other infos' } 
save filename a b c infos

[John Jendzurski]

That is a good idea. Thank you!

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

You can also create a function for each file you want to load

function filename
% comment1
% comment2
% .....
load filename

To load the file filename just type

   filename

To see the comments type

help  filename

Answer 3

[Bjorn Gustavsson]

Sure, create a string describing everything, save that string variable.

[John Jendzurski]

Thank you, Bjorn. This seems like a reasonable approach.