Comma-Separated Lists :: Basic Program Components (Programming)

Programming

Comma-Separated Lists

Typing in a series of numbers separated by commas gives you what is called a comma-separated list. MATLAB returns each value individually:

1, 2, 3
ans =
     1
ans =
     2
ans =
     3

Such a list, by itself, is not very useful. But when used with large and more complex data structures like MATLAB structures and cell arrays, the comma-separated list can enable you to simplify your MATLAB code.

This section covers

Generating a List from a Cell Array

Extracting multiple elements from a cell array yields a comma-separated list. Given a 4-by-6 cell array as shown here

C = cell(4, 6);
for k = 1:24,   C{k} = k * 2;   end

C
C = 
    [2]    [10]    [18]    [26]    [34]    [42]
    [4]    [12]    [20]    [28]    [36]    [44]
    [6]    [14]    [22]    [30]    [38]    [46]
    [8]    [16]    [24]    [32]    [40]    [48]

extracting the fifth column generates the following comma-separated list:

C{:, 5}
ans =
    34
ans =
    36
ans =
    38
ans =
    40

This is the same as explicitly typing

```
C{1, 5}, C{2, 5}, C{3, 5}, C{4, 5}
```

Operator Summary Generating a List from a Structure