How do I pass variables between functions

This should be trivial, but I keep getting errors.

This is my main function. It calls each function to read data from a .txt file.

function [] = int_main
%opens example file and calls all functions to read from it
FEA=fopen('FEA.txt');

readMesh(FEA);

readProperties(FEA);

readConstraints(FEA);

readLoads(FEA);

assembleGlobalStiffnessMatrix()
end

This is an example of one of the functions.

function [Properties] = readProperties(FEA)
%Reads the material properties about the beam
format shorteng
Properties= fscanf(FEA,'%*s %*s %*s %g %g %g',[3,1])'
end

Now, the problem is when I try to use the "Properties" variable in the assembleGlobalStiffnessMatrix. It is not in the same workspace.

function [] = assembleGlobalStiffnessMatrix(Properties)
% Sets up Stiffness Matrix

Properties

end

All I need to do is use the variable I calculated from the previous function. Other answers have suggested using a function function, but I don't think this will work because executing the readProperties function in the globalStiffnessMatrix function will cause the fscanf command to read the wrong line.

Somehow, I need to access the "Properties" variable. But my assignment specifies that global variables are prohibited. So, I have no idea how to make this work.

Thank you

[jgg]

You have to pass things into the function you want and store output you want to store. So, in your workflow, you'd want something like this:

 function [] = int_main
  %opens example file and calls all functions to read from it
  FEA=fopen('FEA.txt');
  readMesh(FEA);
  Properties = readProperties(FEA);
  readConstraints(FEA);
  readLoads(FEA);
  assembleGlobalStiffnessMatrix(Properties)
 end

[Michael cornman]

Thank you! That fixed it!

Answer 1

[Honglei Chen]

It seems you didn't explicitly return and pass in the properties you computed? Could you try

   properties = readProperties(FEA);
   assembleGlobalStiffnessMatrix(properties)

in your main function?

HTH