Recall user defined variable in another subsequent user input.

body1 = input ('ENTER THE NAME OF THE FIRST CELESTIAL BODY: ','s');
body2 = input ('ENTER THE NAME OF THE SECOND CELESTIAL BODY: ','s');
planrad = input ('ENTER THE DISTANCE BETWEEN THESE TWO BODIES IN (m): ');
massbod1 = input ('ENTER THE MASS OF (body1): ');
massbod2 = input ('ENTER THE NAME OF (body2): ');

I'm asking the user to define the above variables... How can I programm "massbod1" and "massbod2" to automatically insert the user entered text?

Answer 1

[Matt J]

I suspect that this is what you are trying to do

      numbodies=4;

      for i=1:numbodies

          massbod(i)=input (['ENTER THE MASS OF (body ' num2str(i) '): '])

      end

[Matt J]

You can also do this kind of thing:

   >> massbod = input ('ENTER THE MASSES OF ALL BODIES AS A VECTOR: ');

    ENTER THE MASSES OF ALL BODIES AS A VECTOR: [ 1 2 3 4]

    >> massbod

    massbod =

         1     2     3     4

[Stephen23]

+1 for not trying to dynamically name variables.

[Jorge Bastillo]

Mathematically these would work, yes. However at the end of the program I want to tell the user some values associated with the names they entered. With this in mind, these will not accomplish that.

[Matt J]

Yes it will. You just have to apply the same techniques consistently when gathering the names,

    >> cbnames= input('ENTER THE NAMES OF THE CELESTIAL BODIES:')

    ENTER THE NAMES OF THE CELESTIAL BODIES:{'Jupiter','Venus','Mars'}

    >> massbod = input ('ENTER THE MASS OF ALL BODIES AS A VECTOR: ');

    ENTER THE MASS OF ALL BODIES AS A VECTOR: [10 20 30]

Then use a loop over both to print results,

    >> for i=1:3, disp(['The mass of ', cbnames{i} ' is ' num2str(massbod(i))]), end

    The mass of Jupiter is 10
    The mass of Venus is 20
    The mass of Mars is 30

[Jorge Bastillo]

You're right - I had to read it again. Thanks for looping back to my comment!