{"id":355,"date":"2009-02-27T16:35:51","date_gmt":"2009-02-27T16:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/videos\/2009\/02\/27\/dynamic-field-name-usage\/"},"modified":"2009-05-19T16:24:43","modified_gmt":"2009-05-19T16:24:43","slug":"dynamic-field-name-usage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/videos\/2009\/02\/27\/dynamic-field-name-usage\/","title":{"rendered":"Dynamic field name usage"},"content":{"rendered":"This short video shows how you can make your code shorter, more flexible, and readable by using a string variable to reference a field in a structure.  This is called dynamic field name reference or &#8220;dot parens&#8221; notation.\r\n\r\nYou can say:\r\n\r\nfName = &#8216;doug&#8217;\r\na.(fName)  %this now refers to a.doug\r\n\r\n<div><div class=\"row\"><div class=\"col-xs-12 containing-block\"><div class=\"bc-outer-container add_margin_20\"><videoplayer><div class=\"video-js-container\"><video data-video-id=\"3877438000001\" data-video-category=\"blog\" data-autostart=\"false\" data-account=\"62009828001\" data-omniture-account=\"mathwgbl\" data-player=\"rJ9XCz2Sx\" data-embed=\"default\" id=\"mathworks-brightcove-player\" class=\"video-js\" controls><\/video><script src=\"\/\/players.brightcove.net\/62009828001\/rJ9XCz2Sx_default\/index.min.js\"><\/script><script>if (typeof(playerLoaded) === 'undefined') {var playerLoaded = false;}(function isVideojsDefined() {if (typeof(videojs) !== 'undefined') {videojs(\"mathworks-brightcove-player\").on('loadedmetadata', function() {playerLoaded = true;});} else {setTimeout(isVideojsDefined, 10);}})();<\/script><\/div><\/videoplayer><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\nIn this particular example, a MATLAB user was writing out dozens of different cases, when one loop with dynamic field name reference makes the code so much easier.\r\n\r\n<hr \/>I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome Dan Sutoyo, of <a href=\"http:\/\/blinkdagger.com\/matlab\">Blink Dagger<\/a> fame, to The MathWorks.  Dan first came on to my radar when he started posting about MATLAB and commenting on this blog.  Eventually we got talking about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mathworks.com\/company\/jobs\/opportunities\">job opportunities at The MathWorks<\/a> and I referred him for a position starting in the Engineering Development Group.  Thanks for accepting the job and I hope to see you guest posting your tutorials here soon.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"thumbnail thumbnail_asset asset_overlay video\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/videos\/2009\/02\/27\/dynamic-field-name-usage\/?dir=autoplay\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cf-images.us-east-1.prod.boltdns.net\/v1\/static\/62009828001\/041754a4-e374-4267-8091-97553993dbb6\/bb0bef2f-3918-45c2-8086-ee9af282df42\/160x90\/match\/image.jpg\" onError=\"this.style.display ='none';\"\/>\n      <div class=\"overlay_container\">\n      <span class=\"icon-video icon_color_null\"><time class=\"video_length\">3:07<\/time><\/span>\n      <\/div>\n      <\/a><\/div><p>This short video shows how you can make your code shorter, more flexible, and readable by using a string variable to reference a field in a structure.  This is called dynamic field name reference or&#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/videos\/2009\/02\/27\/dynamic-field-name-usage\/\">read more >><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,12,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}