How do I create a varying number of outputs from a function file?

how to create a varying number of outputs from a function file. I have a text file with groups of x,y,z coords but the number of groups can change depending on the file. So I need to output matrices of the coords in groups: stripe1, stripe2... stripeN, where N is the number of groups (which can be set before hand).

here is an idea of what the my code looks like but as you can see I don't know what to write in the function output bracket

 function [] = extract_data (VSPARS, NoS)
A = importfile (VSPARS);   
A.data;                         
B = ans;  

n = 1;                          

while n < NoS + 1
    if n == 1
        e = 1;
        f = 20;
        stripe1 = B(e:f, :);
        n = n + 1;
    elseif n > 1 & n <= NoS
        e = f + 2;
        f = f + 21 + 10*(n - 1);
        stripe'n' = B(e:f, :);
        n = n + 1;
    end
end

Thanks

[Walter Roberson]

Please see also

http://matlab.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ?cb=8329#How_can_I_create_variables_A1.2C_A2.2C....2CA10_in_a_loop.3F

Answer 1

[Matt Tearle]

Sounds like you're looking for varargout. It's a cell array, with each cell holding one of the outputs. To see how many outputs were requested when the function was called, use nargout.

Alternatively, just use a single cell array output. Or even a 3-D array, if the matrices are all the same size.

It depends on how you want the function called.