Using sprintf() command

Is this the correct way to use this command? flame_x1 is a matrix.

n = 4;
Fuel = JP5;
%%% Upper Flame
sprintf('%s_xvalues_upper_%d', 'Fuel', n) = flame_x1([upper_flame_width]);

[madhan ravi]

upper_flame_width ???

What are you trying to do? What result are you expecting??

[Walter Roberson]

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/304528-tutorial-why-variables-should-not-be-named-dynamically-eval

[Stephen23]

"Is this the correct way to use this command?"

The problem is not sprintf, but your concept of dynamically naming variables.

Dynamically naming variables is one way that beginners force themselves into writing slow, complex, obfuscated, buggy code that is hard to debug. Read this to know why:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/304528-tutorial-why-variables-should-not-be-named-dynamically-eval

In contrast indexing is neat, simple, easy to understand, easy to debug, and very efficient (unlike what you are trying to do). You should probably use indexing (e.g. with a cell array or a numeric array).

Note that meta-data (such as indexes and types of fuel) are data and so should be stored in a variable, not in a variable's name. Forcing meta-data into variable names makes them slow and complicated to access:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/225435-save-variable-as-string-from-user-input

Possibly the best storage for your data would be a non-scalar structure or a table, both of which would make it trival to store the data and meta-data together in one array:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/tables.html

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_prog/access-multiple-elements-of-a-nonscalar-struct-array.html

Answer 1

[Vimal Rathod]

The sprintf function returns formatted string or a character array which may be assigned to a variable.

In the following code given,

n = 4; 
Fuel = JP5; 
%%% Upper Flame 
sprintf('%s_xvalues_upper_%d', 'Fuel', n) = flame_x1([upper_flame_width]); 

In the above code flame_x1 should be on the left side of equals so that it attains the value from sprintf function.

Refer to the sprintf documentation for more details:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/sprintf.html