Store variables in strings and invoke them

Hi!

I'm doing a bioinformatic analysis on miRNAs and I have a lots of code repetition in order to do the same operations to different datasets. I wonder if it would be possible to store the variables name into strings/cells and somehow execute scripts in a cycle that explores all the string/cell positions

For example

    massCP=zeros(maxCP-2,1);
for i=maxCP:-1:1
    massCP(i,1)=i;
    A=sum(sum(nCP==i));
    massCP(i,2)=A;
end
massCP=flipud(massCP);

 patternCP=cell(max(massCP(:,2))+1,maxCP);

%%if true%%
for i=1:maxCP
  patternCP{1,i}=horzcat('--',num2str(i),'--');
end

%%if true%%
for i=1:maxCP
  [r,c]=find(nCP==i);
  for j=1:length(r)
      patternCP{j+1,i}=CGImageBack(r(j),c(j),n);
  end
end
%%end%%

(I need to do this for different variables: CM, MM1, MP1, ...)

the ideal thing would be having those variables stored and called in a cycle.

Is it possible? or should I leave the code as it is (with 6 code repetition with just the variable that changes?)

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

http://matlab.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ#How_can_I_create_variables_A1.2C_A2.2C....2CA10_in_a_loop.3F

Answer 2

[Iain]

I would suggest that you use functions.

You can store a variable name in a string, and use it, but its slower, and more likely to go wrong.

 eval([ ' current_variable = ' string_containing_variable_you_want_to_use ';'])
or 
current_variable = eval(string_containing_variable_you_want_to_use);