Question

I have written a function that takes the names and values of the input variables and writes them to a file. eg.

a = 10;
b = 100;
writevars('file.txt',a,b);

gives me a file file.txt that contains:

\def\a{\num{10}}
\def\b{\num{100}}

It would now like to be able to pass on all variables that are found using the who command. Eg if who returns:

a    b    z

I would like to be able to use writevars as if I called writers('file.txt', a, b, z).

The main problem I have is that writevars makes use of inputname… (temporary variables won’t work e.g. writevars('file.txt', 100) doesn’t work since there is no name to be given in the file).

ANSWER

var_names = who;
for i = 1 : length(var_names)
    evalin('caller',['writevars(''file.txt'', ' char(var_names(i)) ' )']);
end

Answer 1

You can use EVALIN to run who from within writevars, e.g.

function writevars(filename,varargin)

%# get a list of variable names in the calling workspace and read their values
if isempty(varargin)
   listOfVars = evalin('caller','who');
   values = cell(size(listOfVars));
   for i=1:length(listOfVars)
      values{i} = evalin('caller',listOfVars{i});
   end
else
   %# use inputname to read the variable names into listOfVars
end

%# --- rest of writevars is here ---