Renaming an array in a script

I've imported data from Excel into a structure, and then I want to save each column into a new array. After I input the data it is stored in a structure called 'Data' which is a 9458x247 double. I also have the header names stored in 'Params' which is a 1x247 cell.

I am trying to create a loop that looks like:

for i=1:length(Params);
     par=strcat(Params(i));
     p=Data(:,i);
     rename(p, 'ParameterName', par);
end

Basically, I want the array to be named to the corresponding header name in Params, but Matlab keeps giving me errors saying 'Undefined function 'rename' for input arguments of type 'double'.

I can right-click on the array in the Workspace, and manually change the name, so I know it's possible, but I don't know how to set up a script to do this.

Anyone know how to do this?

Answer 1

[Michael Haderlein]

I see two options.

1) You know the names in advance (because they are all the same for every Excel file you open). Then, you can do something like

time=Data(:,1);
PosX=Data(:,2);

and so on.

2) You don't know the names in advance because they vary between the Excel files. Within seconds, this will go towards dynamic variable names, eval and so on. Don't do that. You already have the data in a cell and that's good. If you want, you can put it into a structure:

structData=cell2struct(Data,Params,2);

This can even be accessed dynamically, e.g.

structData.(Params{2})

will return the values of PosX assuming that Params{2} is 'PosX'.

[Michael Haderlein]

Derek Ferguson's answer moved here:

"It won't let me do that because Data is 'double', and not 'cell'."

[Michael Haderlein]

Yes, you are right, seems like I was confused. Anyway, with

 mat2cell(Data,size(Data,1),ones(1,size(Data,2)))

you can easily convert it to a cell first and then move on to a struct. At least I wouldn't know a direct way.

Answer 2

[Derek Ferguson]

It won't let me do that because Data is 'double', and not 'cell'.

Answer 3

[Stephen Cobeldick]

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_prog/string-evaluation.html

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