MATLAB: Matlab confusion of function and variable names after load

function namevariable name

Hi everyone. I encountered a strange problem about function and variable names. I tried this
clear all
close all
alpha=1;
save ('data1.mat')
test1
Where test1 is the function
 function test1
 load data1.mat % which contains only variable alpha
 alpha   % to see the value of alpha
And the error appeared, as if I called function alpha instead of variable alpha. As I know, when we name a variable same as a builtin function, matlab treats that name as a variable name whenever it is called (and we should avoid that style of naming).
Also, in my case, I used 'whos' command to see if there was a variable named 'alpha' in the workspace after load function. And I did have that 'alpha' variable. Just why this problem happened? All the functions, .mat file are in the same folder. I've tried in Matlab 2016a,b and 2017b.

Best Answer

The load command 'poof'ed a variable into the function workspace after the parser had parsed the m-file and associated "alpha" with the function of that name. To avoid this confusion, load into a struct and extract your desired variable. E.g.,
s = load('data1.mat'); % which contains only variable alpha
alpha = s.alpha   % to see the value of alpha
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