Assign an incrementing variable to another variable name

This code can compile when the name_1 and other variables are given manually like I commented below: %name_1 = 'SID12_MVI0248_Trim.mp4'; etc.

However, what I am trying to do is this: I want the code to get this variables from excel sheet and assign the cell data to the variables. For example, it reads from the excel sheet 'face_info' and assume I have 10 videos in the excel sheet. I want every video's name should be updated as: name_1 = first name in the excel sheet and, name_2 = second name etc. and for each name(or video) I want it to compile the function B below which edits the videos in other scripts. So, I want to deal with each of the videos, but I always get the error Error using eval "Unrecognized function or variable 'name_1'." and "invalid use of 'name_' on the left side of an assignment".

I would really appreciate if someone could help me, thanks in advance!

video_name=[]; %name of the video
face_length =[]; %face length
nose_x = [];
nose_y = [];
non_blink_time = [];
[num1,txt1,data1] = xlsread('face_info.xlsx');

for j=1:length(txt1)
    video_name = data1(:,1);
    nose_x = data1(:,3);%x coordinate of the nose
    nose_y = data1(:,4);%y coordinate of the nose
    face_length = data1(:,5);%y length of the face
    non_blink_time = data1(:,6); %non-blink start time
end
%disp(video_name{2}); 

videosPathToBeEdited = '/Users/user/Desktop/VideoCodes/';
editedVideosFolderPath = '/Users/user/Desktop/VideoCodes/';
videos = dir(videosPathToBeEdited);
cd(fullfile(editedVideosFolderPath));

faceCell = cell(video_number);
for i = 1:video_number
    vidName = video_name{i+1}
    disp(vidName);
    vidPath = strcat(videosPathToBeEdited, vidName);

    disp(vidPath);
    V= VideoReader(vidPath);
    RGB= readFrame(V);
    imshow(RGB);
    ['name_' num2str(i)] = video_name{i+1};
    non_blink_time  = ['starting_second_' num2str(i)];
    nose_x  = ['nose_x_coord_' num2str(i)];
    nose_y = ['nose_y_coord_' num2str(i)];
    face_length = ['face_length_' num2str(i)];
    disp(video_name{i+1});

%name_1 = 'SID12_MVI0248_Trim.mp4'; starting_second_1 = 1;    nose_x_coord_1 = 954;  nose_y_coord_1 = 520;    face_length_1= 397; gender_1 = 'male';


B= conditionprep_behav(eval(['name_' num2str(i)]),sampling_rate_in_use,eval(['starting_second_' num2str(i)]),video_duration,eval(['nose_x_coord_' num2str(i)]),eval(['nose_y_coord_' num2str(i)]),eval(['face_length_' num2str(i)]),video_number,lum_mean,lum_std,resX,resY,elliptic_mask_threshold,video_duration_inname);
faceCell{i}.info = B;
faceCell{i}.sex = eval(['gender_' num2str(i)]);
end
save (['faceCell' video_duration_inname '.mat'],'faceCell');

[Stephen23]

Nothing in your code requires dynamic variable names.

Your code would be simpler and much more efficient using basic indexing.

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

Note that in this line

cd(fullfile(editedVideosFolderPath));

fullfile does nothing, and rather than using cd you should use more efficient (and easier to debug) absolute/relative filenames. You should use fullfile instead of string concatenation.

[Gulce Lale]

Thank you very much, you really solved the problem!:)

[Peter Perkins]

Gulce, you will likely also be better off using readtable instead of xlsread.

Also, this loop seems suspect, because nothing in the body appears to change over the iterations:

for j=1:length(txt1)
    video_name = data1(:,1);
    nose_x = data1(:,3);%x coordinate of the nose
    nose_y = data1(:,4);%y coordinate of the nose
    face_length = data1(:,5);%y length of the face
    non_blink_time = data1(:,6); %non-blink start time
end