Question

I have an m-file function with 4 outputs. I would like to define an anonymous function that has the same inputs, but only produces 2 of the four outputs. Is this possible?

Answer 1

If the two outputs are #1 and #2, everything is fine, and you don’t have to worry about the other two outputs.

If the two outputs are any two others, you have two options

(1) Create a wrapper function with two outputs (note that in newer versions of Matlab you can replace the unused outputs dummy by ~.

function [out1,out2] = wrapperFunction(in1,in2,in3)
   [dummy,out1,dummy,out2] = mainFunction(in1,in2,in3);

(2) Add another input variable that allows you to switch your function’s behavior

function varargout = mainFunction(in1,in2,in3,outputSwitch)
   %# make output switch optional
   if nargin < 4 || isempty(outputSwitch)
      outputSwitch = 0;
   end

   %# calculation here that creates out1-4

   if outputSwitch
       %# the special case where we only want outputs 2 and 4
       varargout = {out2,out4};
   else
       %# return all four outputs
       varargout = {out1,out2,out3,out4}
   end

Then you can create the anonymous function as usual.