Question

Sometimes I accidentally declare variables that have the name of a function.

Here is a constructed example:

 max(4:5) % 5
 max(1:10)=10*ones(10,1); % oops, should be == instead  of = 
 max(4:5) % [10 10]

At the moment I always find this out the hard way and it especially happens with function names that I don’t use frequently.

Is there any way to let matlab give a warning about this? It would be ideal to see this on the right hand side of the screen with the other warnings, but I am open to other suggestions.

Answer 1

Since Matlab allows you to overload built-in functionality, you will not receive any warnings when using existing names.

There are, however, a few tricks to minimize the risk of overloading existing functions:

• Use explicitFunctionNames. It is much less likely that there is a function maxIndex instead of max.

• Use the “Tab”-key often. Matlab will auto-complete functions on the path (as well as variables that you’ve declared previously). Thus, if the variable auto-completes, it already exists. In case you don’t remember whether it’s also a function, hit “F1” to see whether there exists a help page for it.

• Use functions rather than scripts, so that “mis-“assigned variables in the workspace won’t mess up your code.