MATLAB: Create string with characters in char array

Question

Hi,

I have a char array, which I want to use to name a .mat file into which i will save a couple of variables:

Name      Size            Bytes  Class    Attributes
str       1x4                 8  char 
str = F024

str contains only the characters: 'F024'. I want to use the 'save' function to save some variables with the filename being F024. I have tried using:

save(str,variable1,variable2,'-append');

however, an error is returned stating that the argument must contain a string.

Is there a way to convert the char array to a string? I don't want to manually enter the filename as it would mean that the data processing I am doing would take far longer.

Unfortunately I cannot use convertCharsToStrings as my university is running MATLAB v.R2016a.

Thanks.

Answer 1

The problem is not with your str variable, which is perfectly fine, but with the variable1 and variable2 which must be a string or char array containing the names of the variables, not the variables themselves, i.e.:

save(str, 'variable1', 'variable2', '-append');

not

save(str, variable1, variable2, 'append');