6.1.3 Creating Structures

Besides the index operator ".", Octave can use dynamic naming "(var)" or the struct function to create structures. Dynamic naming uses the string value of a variable as the field name. For example:

a = "field2";
x.a = 1;
x.(a) = 2;
x
     ⇒ x =
        {
          a =  1
          field2 =  2
        }

Dynamic indexing also allows you to use arbitrary strings, not merely valid Octave identifiers (note that this does not work on MATLAB):

a = "long field with spaces (and funny char$)";
x.a = 1;
x.(a) = 2;
x
     ⇒ x =
        {
          a =  1
          long field with spaces (and funny char$) =  2
        }

The warning id Octave:language-extension can be enabled to warn about this usage. See warning_ids.

More realistically, all of the functions that operate on strings can be used to build the correct field name before it is entered into the data structure.

names = ["Bill"; "Mary"; "John"];
ages  = [37; 26; 31];
for i = 1:rows (names)
  database.(names(i,:)) = ages(i);
endfor
database
     ⇒ database =
        {
          Bill =  37
          Mary =  26
          John =  31
        }

The third way to create structures is the struct command. struct takes pairs of arguments, where the first argument in the pair is the fieldname to include in the structure and the second is a scalar or cell array, representing the values to include in the structure or structure array. For example:

struct ("field1", 1, "field2", 2)
⇒ ans =
      {
        field1 =  1
        field2 =  2
      }

If the values passed to struct are a mix of scalar and cell arrays, then the scalar arguments are expanded to create a structure array with a consistent dimension. For example:

s = struct ("field1", {1, "one"}, "field2", {2, "two"},
        "field3", 3);
s.field1
     ⇒
        ans =  1
        ans = one

s.field2
     ⇒
        ans =  2
        ans = two

s.field3
     ⇒
        ans =  3
        ans =  3

If you want to create a struct which contains a cell array as an individual field, you must wrap it in another cell array as shown in the following example:

struct ("field1", {{1, "one"}}, "field2", 2)
     ⇒ ans =
        {
          field1 =

        {
          [1,1] =  1
          [1,2] = one
        }

          field2 =  2
        }

: s = struct ()

: s = struct (field1, value1, field2, value2, …)

: s = struct (obj)

Create a scalar or array structure and initialize its values.

The field1, field2, … variables are strings specifying the names of the fields and the value1, value2, … variables can be of any type.

If the values are cell arrays, create a structure array and initialize its values. The dimensions of each cell array of values must match. Singleton cells and non-cell values are repeated so that they fill the entire array. If the cells are empty, create an empty structure array with the specified field names.

If the argument is an object, return the underlying struct.

Observe that the syntax is optimized for struct arrays. Consider the following examples:

struct ("foo", 1)
  ⇒ scalar structure containing the fields:
    foo =  1

struct ("foo", {})
  ⇒ 0x0 struct array containing the fields:
    foo

struct ("foo", { {} })
  ⇒ scalar structure containing the fields:
    foo = {}(0x0)

struct ("foo", {1, 2, 3})
  ⇒ 1x3 struct array containing the fields:
    foo

The first case is an ordinary scalar struct—one field, one value. The second produces an empty struct array with one field and no values, since being passed an empty cell array of struct array values. When the value is a cell array containing a single entry, this becomes a scalar struct with that single entry as the value of the field. That single entry happens to be an empty cell array.

Finally, if the value is a non-scalar cell array, then struct produces a struct array.

See also: cell2struct, fieldnames, getfield, setfield, rmfield, isfield, orderfields, isstruct, structfun.

The function isstruct can be used to test if an object is a structure or a structure array.

: isstruct (x)

Return true if x is a structure or a structure array.

See also: ismatrix, iscell, isa.