Error due to using the same varname in mat file and matlab function

I have a mat file (level1.mat) having the following structure. a = 187817x28 tar = 14931x5 zes = 1167x4

To read this file, I used the following procedure. load('level1.mat') a0=a; tar0 = tar; zes0=zes; clear a tar zes

But it gave me an error message like Error using tar (line XX) Not enough input arguments. Error in reader_level1 (line XX) tar0 = tar;

I think the problem might be caused by the duplicate variable name (tar) in mat file and function (tar: to compress file). However, I cannot solve this problem. I do not want to change original mat file but change my code. Could you please help me how to fix this problem? Thank you very much in advance.

Answer 1

[OCDER]

Try to load the variables into a structure to prevent "poofing" them into your workspace, which can cause issues with overriding existing variables and functions. See workaround below:

T = load('level1.mat');
a0 = T.a; 
tar0 = T.tar; 
zes0 = T.zes;
clear T

Also, it seems you're about to label variables dynamically like a0, a1, a2, a3, tar0, tar1, tar2 etc. This will cause issues later when you want to access all a0-N, tar0-N, etc. Instead, use T directly, OR, store variables in a matrix, cell, or structure. Lastly, using "clear" is slow and hard to keep track of which variables to clear/keep, so try to avoid using this if you can.

Read this discussion before making your code:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/304528-tutorial-why-variables-should-not-be-named-dynamically-eval

[jmok]

I really appreciate for your clear answer. It works!

[OCDER]

You're welcome!