save('-append') does not work ; what am i doing wrong?

Hi

I load in a .mat file into my script which contains a structure array of various variables - one of them the name of some images - the names of the images are pic1, pic2 etc. So the variable is PictureName and then there are rows pictures numbered 1:n

if pic1 and pic2 are already in the .mat file, but I run through my code and want to add pic3 and pic4 to the same .mat file that works fine

But if i start off with pic3 and pic4, and then try and add pic1 and pic2 in a next run through of the code - it overwrites pic3 and pic4 , and i'm just left pic1 and pic2!!

doing save('myfilename.mat', 'myStructuredArrayName') or save('my filename.mat', 'myStructuredArrayName', '-append') doesn't make any difference

what can i do?

thanks

[Adam]

Well the second option is a different filename. Is that just a typo in your question or in your code too?

[Jan]

We need to see the code, which reproduces the behavior.

[cgenes]

For anyone interested I solved my problem by deleting all the empty rows in the struct array, then joining the array from the previous.mat file with the newly created array

myArray = [previousArray, myArray]

then

save('myArray.mat', 'myArray')

[Adam]

Actually, I didn't pick up fully on all the details of the question before. What you see is the expected and documented behaviour of append. The append option adds new variables to an existing mat file in addition to those already there, but if a variable already exists it will overwrite that variable, it doesn't append within a single variable.

So the 'read it in, concatenate and write it out again' approach is what is needed here if you are sure you want everything saved within the same variable in your mat file.