Display the sizes of 4D arrays?

Could matlab display the sizes of arrays with dimensions>=4?

I have many 4D arrays and would like to see their sizes during debug.It is very painful to type size(someLongName) everytime.

Is there a way to make matlab display their sizes (either in "whos" or when moving the mouse over the variable, i.e. in the pop-up description box you usually see)?

Name           Size               Bytes  Class     Attributes

ans            1x4                   32  double                          
someLongName   4-D                40000  double

Thanks a lot!

[Lane]

I too would very much like to see 4-D array sizes displayed using the whos command. I think it's the same issue, but I have 4D arrays that are fields of a structure, and when I type that structure's name I have to do separate commands to see the size of each 4-D field.

Answer 1

[Kelly Kearney]

I wrote the following little function as a slightly altered version of whos. It lists all dimensions, and also converts the Bytes field into a human-readable format. Example in action:

>> a = rand(1,2);
>> b = rand(3,4,5);
>> c = rand(2,3,4,5,6);
>> whos
  Name      Size             Bytes  Class     Attributes

    a         1x2                 16  double              
    b         3x4x5              480  double              
    c         5-D               5760  double              

>> whosh
Name  Size       Bytes  Class 

a     1x2          16B  double
b     3x4x5       480B  double
c     2x3x4x5x6     5K  double

The function:

function whosh(varargin)

if nargin < 1
    S = evalin('base', 'whos');
else
    argstr = sprintf('''%s'',', varargin{:});
    argstr = argstr(1:end-1);
    expression = ['whos(' argstr ')'];
    S = evalin('base', expression);
end

% Bytes string

gig = [S.bytes] > 1024^3;
meg = [S.bytes] > 1024^2 & ~gig;
kil = [S.bytes] > 1024 & ~meg & ~gig;

bytes = [S.bytes]';
bytes(gig) = [S(gig).bytes] ./ 1024^3;
bytes(meg) = [S(meg).bytes] ./ 1024^2;
bytes(kil) = [S(kil).bytes] ./ 1024;

suffix = cell(size(bytes));
[suffix{:}] = deal('B');
[suffix{gig}] = deal('G');
[suffix{meg}] = deal('M');
[suffix{kil}] = deal('K');

bytestr = cellfun(@(a,b) sprintf('%d%s', a, b), num2cell(floor(bytes)), suffix, 'uni', 0);

% Size string

sizestr = arrayfun(@(X) sprintf('%dx', X.size), S, 'uni', 0);
sizestr = cellfun(@(x) x(1:end-1), sizestr, 'uni', 0);

xloc = strfind(sizestr, 'x');
xloc = cellfun(@(x) x(1), xloc);
xlocmax = max(xloc);

npad = num2cell(xlocmax - xloc);
sizestr = cellfun(@(str,x) [repmat(' ', 1,x) str], sizestr, npad, 'uni', 0);

% Format strings

namecol = strvcat('Name', S.name);
sizecol = strvcat('Size', sizestr{:});
bytescol = strvcat('Bytes', bytestr{:});
bytescol(2:end,:) = strjust(bytescol(2:end,:), 'right');
classcol = strvcat('Class', S.class);

data = [cellstr2(namecol) cellstr2(sizecol) cellstr2(bytescol) cellstr2(classcol)];

fprintf('%s  %s  %s  %s\n\n', data{1,:});
temp = data(2:end,:)';
fprintf('%s  %s  %s  %s\n', temp{:});

[Jack Lee]

Thank you very much!

[Stephen23]

roberto ivan perez luna's "Answer" moved here:

hi, i get this error when i am using your script on my 4-D double variables array. so i hope you can someday fix it, if you want to, since this is not your fault and every user help is more concrete than the official matlab issue of not upgrading the function of a command, instead of creating another one and so no, and so on.

>> whosh
Undefined function or variable 'cellstr2'.

Error in whosh (line 51)
data = [cellstr2(namecol) cellstr2(sizecol) cellstr2(bytescol) cellstr2(classcol)];

[Jonathan Blanchette]

just replace "cellstr2" with "cellstr".