MATLAB: Vertical concatenation of structure fields (compact form)

Question

Hi,

I know there is a similar question but it's not about the compact form.

My question is: why does the following not result in a vertical concatenation? (it also fails for numerical values)

Or, how can I change it to concatenate vertically into ['value_1' ; 'value_2'] ?

Thanks!

>> structure(1, 1).field = 'value_1';
>> structure(2, 1).field = 'value_2';
>> [structure(:, 1).field]
ans =
    'value_1value_2'
>> 

Answer 1

Your example concatenates horizontally because it is exactly equivalent to doing this:

[structure(1).field,structure(2).field]

which is just shorthand for

horzcat(structure(1).field,structure(2).field)

If you want to concatenate vertically, use either of these

vertcat(structure.field)
cat(1,structure.field)

For more information on how to use comma-separated lists:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_prog/comma-separated-lists.html

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/320713-how-to-operate-on-comma-separated-lists