Structures

Structures are a data type similar to cells. However, where cells use numeric indices to refer to specific pieces of data, structures use strings.

These strings refer to entities called 'fields'. Each field has its own value which can be of any datatype. Fields must be valid identifiers.

For example, to track data about students, the following structure could be used:

student.name = 'Harry'          
student.age = 22          
student.id = 9028390911

Structures can be combined to make an array of structures, as to make a database of information. One way of doing this is to index to the end of the structure array and add the new information to that index of the array.

student(end+1).name ='Nicole'          
student(end).age = 21
student(end).id = 90294067

Another way to make a structure array is to combine multiple structures together in an array. However, there must be the same number of fields for this to work.

stArray = [struct1 struct2]

A field inside a structure may contain another structure. The fields inside the child structure are accessed in the same manner as the parent, but they are placed after the parent.

inner_struct.value = 5;
outer_struct.data = inner_struct;
outer_struct.data.value => 5

Structure fields names can be dynamically set from a variable. For example, continuing the student structure example above, this can be done:

fieldnameA = 'score';
  student(1).(fieldnameA) = [56];
  student(2).(fieldnameA) = [89];
fieldnameB = 'status';
  student(1).(fieldnameB) = ['pending'];
  student(2).(fieldnameB) = ['registered'];

This will produce this structure:

> student(2)
ans = struct [
age: 21
id: 90294067
name: Nicole
score: 89
status: registered
]

And the fields can be accessed as follows:

> student.score
ans = 56
ans = 89
> student.(fieldnameA)
ans = 56
ans = 89
>