Question

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How can I index a MATLAB array returned by a function without first assigning it to a local variable?

I would like to use indexing on the output of a function. I use the textscan function to read very large text files (15 GB). The return of the textscan function in my case is a 1×1 cell array that contains a very large numeric array.

Instead of doing:

tmp = textscan(...);
final_result = mat2cell(tmp{1,1});

I would like to do:

final_result = mat2cell( textscan(...){1,1} );

If this would work, it would avoid the creation of the very large temporary variable tmp. Is there another way to avoid the temporary variable?

Answer 1

In case you are still wondering, consider this example:

%# some function that returns a cell array (TEXTSCAN in your case)
myFunc = @() {rand(5,5)};

%# normally you would write
C = myFunc();
C = C{1,1};

Here is the cellarray-version of @gnovice answer in the linked question (ugly but works):

%# equivalent to: C = myFunc(){1,1}
C = subsref(myFunc(), struct('type','{}','subs',{{[1 1]}}))