Generation of symbolic vector of functions

I need to define a lot of symbolic variables for DAE solver.

Instead of using

sym f1(t) f2(t) % up to arbitrary fN(t)

i would prefer something like this

sym('f_%d(t)',[1 N])

or similar. But it seems that use of parenthes is not allowed. Is possible to generate programatically such vectors?

[John D'Errico]

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

No, you cannot do what you are asking. Nor is it a good idea. Learn to use vectors.

[Jan Filip]

I dont think it is that case. According to sym documentation can do

sym('dx_%d',[1 N])

What is the difference between this and variables f_i(t)?

[Walter Roberson]

John is not correct, it can be done and I have done it.

The case with [] without () is handled by calling sym() to generate the names and then processing the returned list of names. That does not work with () because sym() does not handle (). Handling of () is done by syms() calling symfun() to create the appropriate objects.

There is no reason why syms could not be reprogrammed to handle arrays of functions: it just has not been done.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

syms("f_" + (1:N) + "(t)")

The output cannot be assigned to anything.

syms() must be used for this, not sym()

str2sym() will not work for this purpose, and instead will effectively give you back variable names that just happen to include '(' 't' ')' characters but which are not functions.

There is an alternative involving aarrayfun of a symfun call and 'uniform', 0

[Jan Filip]

Thank you, syms is the key :)