create variable name and save

Hi

I work with several subjects, and I want to find a way to 1. May a new folder for each one of them (with their name and timestamp) 2. Store the matfile in the folder again under their name

Obviously I want to change names of the folder and the matfile not to often.

So far I have in mind something as the following code:

str = date;
Name_Folder = strcat('Personx_', str); %Folder name
mkdir(Name_Folder)

Name_File = 'Personx_TrialOne'; % Name of matfile

Personx_TrialOne = 5; % ??

save(strcat('./',Name_Folder,'/',Name_File), Name_File);

But I don't see how I can save a value in "Personx_TrialOne" without having to type "Personx_TrialOne" explicitly (but by using Name_File for instance, such that for each person only this line would be changed. Hence something as in Name_File = 5 basically)

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

• Instead of concatenating file-paths together, you should use fullfile.
• sprintf can be used to generate the filename using some sequential integers.
• mkdir can be used to create a new directory.
• You can get the current date+time using clock, and convert this using datestr.

>> nameFolder = sprintf('Personx_%s',datestr(clock,'yyyymmdd'))
nameFolder =
Personx_20150513
>> trialNumber = 5;
>> nameFile = sprintf('PersonTrial_%i.mat',trialNumber)
nameFile =
PersonTrial_5.mat
>> namePath = fullfile(nameFolder,nameFile)
namePath =
Personx_20150513\PersonTrial_5.mat
>> save(namePath,...names of variables here!)

If you really want to automatically generate the words 'one', 'two', 'three', etc, for each trial, then you can use my FEX submission num2words:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/47221-numeric-to-english-words

[MiauMiau]

thank you, but what I see here again, is that there seems no way to generate the "names of variables" as a string, like Personname = 'Richard' AND then use Richard to store values, as well to use it as the variable name to save. Do you know what I mean?

[MiauMiau]

Edit: I found it, what I was basically looking for was the eval function! many thanks nevertheless

[Stephen23]

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