Generate .m-file code for any MATLAB variable

Generate .m script code for any MATLAB variable. If run, the code recreates the input variable.

Description

Have you ever tried to inspect and modify deeply nested struct/cell variables? Of course, MATLABs variable editor will help to visualise these variables. However, to create such a variable automatically or to change some of the deeply nested fields routinely this submission may be useful.
The main function is GENCODE. This function traverses the input variable recursively. Recursion stops if the value of the current part of the input variable can be expressed as a right hand side of a MATLAB assignment (usually, this is the case for up to 2D matrices, character or cell arrays). In this case, GENCODE_RVALUE is called to create code for the right hand side of the assignment, and GENCODE_SUBSTRUCT is called to create the correct reference into the input variable.

A very simple example:
% struct variable with 2 fields 'a' and 'b'
x.a = 1;
x.b = 'somestring';
% generate code for it
str = gencode(x);
% display this code
char(str)
% clear original variable
clear x
% recreate it by evaluating the code
eval(sprintf('%s', str{:}))

A more realistic example is provided in hgsave_pre2008a.m. In MATLAB 2008a, GUIDE saves %automatic uicontrol callbacks as anonymous function handles. Unfortunately, MATLAB R14SP3 crashes when loading .fig/.mat files that contain certain anonymous functions. One possible workaround is to
1. open the .fig file in MATLAB 2008a
2. generate code for it
3. run the generated code in MATLAB R14SP3
4. save the resulting variable in a new .fig file

• MATLAB release: MATLAB 7.1.0 (R14SP3)
• HTML Files: GENERATE CODE FOR VARIABLES
• Other Files: examples/gencode_example.m, ; gencode.m, ; gencode_rvalue.m, ; gencode_substruct.m, ; hgsave_pre2008a.m, ; license.txt

[Gabriel Akira Schreiber]

This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you very much.

One suggestion remains though:
1: A 'compact' mode without unnecessary spaces to conserve space

[Volkmar Glauche]

I decided not to have this compact mode because lines may get really long. But I will think about it again.

[Chamane]

helpfull
Mike from http://www.abcourses.fr