How do I force MATLAB treat my variable 'range' as a variable instead of a function ?
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I am doing a project for my sponsor. In the data he gives me, there is a matrix called 'range'. When I use this variable 'range' in my own function, MATLAB always treats it as its build-in function and gives me error. Since I cannot ask my sponsor to change the name of the variable, is there a way to force MATLAB treat 'range' as a variable ?
2 Comments
Stephen23
on 3 May 2017
- Never simply load into the workspace and make variables magically appear in the workspace. Always load into an output argument (which is a structure): S = load(...);
- Do not use the variable name range. Always use which to check if a name is already in use.
Note that if you had load-ed into a structure then this issue would never have occurred!
Accepted Answer
Steven Lord
on 2 May 2017
I suspect you're loading the variable into the workspace via load or eval, right? That's known as "poofing" a variable into the workspace. To avoid this:
- Whenever I call load inside a function, I almost always call it with an output argument. This will make the output argument become a struct array with one field per variable in the MAT-file, which I can index using normal dot notation.
- If you cannot call load with an output, make sure in your code (prior to calling load) that you assign a value to the variable. That will tell the MATLAB parser that the identifier must be a variable, not a function, in your code and it will treat it as such.
More Answers (1)
Alessandro
on 2 May 2017
Simply create a copy of the variable assigning a different name?
3 Comments
Alessandro
on 2 May 2017
Edited: Alessandro
on 2 May 2017
I still don't understand the problem, as long as the 'range' variable is correctly indicized in the function. The following MWE works for me:
function [ range ] = test( range )
range = 2*range;
end
if I call
range = [1 2;3 4];
range = test(range)
from the workspace the result is
range =
2 4
6 8
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