Creating variable whose name is part of a string

I have a .mat file as an input for my function and I know that it contains a struct, but I don't know exactly the name of that struct (is different from file to file).

    >> s = load('myFile');
    >> name = fieldnames(s)

    name =

    unknown

where unknown depends on the .mat file input I have.

How can I access s.unknown.X? (I know for sure that unknown have an X and Y field, whatever the input might be)

Answer 1

[Robert Cumming]

see this question

Basically - dont use eval - its bad! use dynamic fieldnames instead! :)

[Vishal Rane]

Agreed ! But how does one dynamically create a variable which is not intended to be a struct or struct field.

[Robert Cumming]

dont - change your design so you dont need to.

[Jan]

I agree with Robert: Do not create variables dynamically. It would work, but increase the complexity of the code without any real benefit, slows down Matlab by impeding the JIT acceleration, and makes debugging much harder.

[Dina Irofti]

You are right, it is better to use dynamic fieldnames. My solution is:

s = load('myFile');
unknown = fieldnames(s);
unknown = unknown{1};

Now I can access

s.(unknown).X

Answer 2

[Vishal Rane]

You could try this:

eval([name, ' = 10'])

[Dina Irofti]

I'd rather didn't use eval()