Clearing Global variables... except for.

Asked by Trevor Harris on 11 Oct 2012

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Hey all,

I wish to clear all my global variables apart from two. So I've generated a cell array of strings that contain all my global variables and removed the two I wish to save:

    globals = who('global');
    globals = globals(~strcmpi(globals,'waitGUI'));
    globals = globals(~strcmpi(globals,'decayFig'));

This is where I'm stuck. How do I clear all the variables who's names of the variables are strings within the cell array "globals"? Thanks!

Trevor

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4 Answers

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Answer by Daniel Shub on 11 Oct 2012

Edited by Daniel Shub on 11 Oct 2012

To remove the variables locally

clear(globals{:})

to remove them globally

clear('global', var{:})

You should also look into the regexp support of clear and the -except flag.

clear -global -except waitGUI decayFig

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Trevor Harris on 11 Oct 2012

I tried that, it didn't work. This is from my command line:

K>> globals = who('global')

globals =

    'SaveData'
    'crossPlot'
    'dataPan'
    'decayFig'
    'dpDecay'
    'dpXUnfiltered'
    'fitLine'
    'fitType'
    'fitTypeString'
    'hAxes'
    'll'
    'll2'
    'll3'
    'peaksPlot'
    'peridYLabel'
    'periodAxPlot'
    'pfit'
    'ssFFT'
    'ssTT'
    'timeTraceUnfiltPlot'
    'troughsPlot'
    'waitGUI'
    'xunitBase'
    'yunitIs'

K>> clear(globals{:})

K>> who('global');

Your variables are:

SaveData dpXUnfiltered ll periodAxPlot troughsPlot crossPlot fitLine ll2 pfit waitGUI dataPan fitType ll3 ssFFT xunitBase decayFig fitTypeString peaksPlot ssTT yunitIs dpDecay hAxes peridYLabel timeTraceUnfiltPlot

Daniel Shub on 11 Oct 2012

Sorry I thought you wanted to do it locally. To do it globally is essentially the same, except you need the global flag. You really should read the documentation of clear, since there are a number of better ways of doing this.

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Answer by José-Luis on 11 Oct 2012

Edited by José-Luis on 11 Oct 2012

keep4

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Answer by Image Analyst on 11 Oct 2012

Here's one way. Just save what you want into local variables, then destroy all globals, then recreate the globals you want:

% Save into local variables.
saved_waitGUI = waitGUI;
saved_decayFig = decayFig;
% Clear all globals
clear global; 
% Redeclare globals
global waitGUI;
global decayFig;
% Restore the globals we wanted to keep
waitGUI = keep_waitGUI;
decayFig = keep_decayFig;

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Answer by Jan on 11 Oct 2012

A meta-answer: Avoid working with GLOBALS. There are always better solutions which do not make the debugging a trip to hell.

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