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keep

version 1.0.0.0 (810 Bytes) by David Yang

David Yang (view profile)
KEEP is complementary to the "clear" command: it keeps the supplied variables and deletes the rest.
4.7
51 Ratings

33 Downloads

Updated 10 Aug 1999

No License

Editor's Note: This file was a File Exchange Pick of the Week.

KEEP is complementary to the "clear" command: instead of clearing the supplied variables, it keeps them and deletes the rest.

For example, the command " keep x y " clears all variables from the workspace except x and y.

Cite As

David Yang (2020). keep (https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/181-keep), MATLAB Central File Exchange. Retrieved .

Comments and Ratings (56)

An Le

An Le (view profile)

Frank Hogervorst

Frank Hogervorst (view profile)

Charles Harrison

Charles Harrison (view profile)

I second Ray Ducharme's comment in that you can use clearvars -except var1 var2 ... and not have to carry around a third party function

David Cooper

David Cooper (view profile)

Chad Greene

Chad Greene (view profile)

Deyan Dobromirov

Deyan Dobromirov (view profile)

Works awesome for my player many 10x !!

Karl

Karl (view profile)

A useful edit would be to check for the workspace for the variables and error out if not found. Otherwise if you mistype, you lose the variable you want to keep.

Karl

Karl (view profile)

Michael

Michael (view profile)

Brady

Brady (view profile)

Grzegorz Knor

Grzegorz Knor (view profile)

Very useful function and simpler than regular expressions.

Airballman

Airballman (view profile)

Just magic,

Thx :)

Ray Ducharme

Ray Ducharme (view profile)

Ray Ducharme

Ray Ducharme (view profile)

FYI, users with newer version can now use "clearvars -except". To 'keep' old habits...

function keep(varargin)
evalin('caller',['clearvars -except ' char(varargin)]);
end

call...
keep 'x y'

Thanks David for the original function!

Tina Hegarty

Tina Hegarty (view profile)

Really handy little script. Saves lots of time as well as minimising size of saved workspaces. Many thanks.

Thorsten

Thorsten (view profile)

I used the code by Thomas Deneux, which was really helpful and instructive. However, maybe due to an old MATLAB version, it didn't work for me with many variables to be cleaned.

Modifying the middle block like this worked fine for my, although it's a rather crude fix...

% make a string (separate the variable by a space)
% [varlist{:,2}] = deal(' '); modified
varlist=strcat(varlist, '?');
varlist = varlist';
% varstr = [varlist{:}];
varstr=regexprep([varlist{:}],'?',' '); % modified

shah

shah (view profile)

thanks

Florian

Florian (view profile)

Thomas Deneux

Thomas Deneux (view profile)

looks great, but the code can be much more simple!
for example,

function keep(varargin)

% variables to clear in a cell array
varlist = evalin('caller','who');
varlist = setdiff(varlist,varargin);

% make a string (separate the variable by a space)
[varlist{:,2}] = deal(' ');
varlist = varlist';
varstr = [varlist{:}];

% and clear!
evalin('caller',['clear ' varstr])

Kristyn Falkenstern

Thank you! this is great.

Touko Pouko

Bravissimo!

K R

Brilliant! This is incredibly useful.

Sushil Subramanian

Excellent tool! MATLAB should include this.

Matthew Rydzik

Perfect code, Thanks!

H D

Does Mathworks need to pay a lot to make this function in the built-in lib?

Chris Andrews

I love having this script. Thank you for posting!

Cornelis P. Bogerd

Excellent

Mark Thommy

A very helpful piece of code, just what I needed. Well done to the author!

M M Dupin

Dear MATLAB developers, please listen to users and add this *extremely* useful function in the core of MATLAB. Plus, it has already been tested by us!

Sulabh Dhanuka

Though simple in idea, it is such a useful function. I have wished for something like this for so long. I agree, it makes no sense for this to be a part of Matlab.

J J

Why on earth is this function not part of MATLAB to begin with??

Mauricio Fernandez

Muchas gracias por tu trabajo, good job.

Andrew Gee

This is gold

Andre Crawford

This file saves lots of time and extra coding.

Taon Khuu

Excellent little function!!!

Christoph Ullrich

Super - saves lines and lines of clean codes...

Daniel Vasques

I agree this should come with MATLAB.

Andrew Lingg

Very nice for cleaning up memory while holding onto important results

Kristofer Svensson

Benjamin Fenech

Ivan Ordonez

It is a very good and practical tool.

Jerome G.

Exactement ce que je cherchais.

D. Gietelink

Perfect! why is this not a standard matlab function yet?

Yi Li

Good job!

Hui Shi

yes, that's exactly what I am looking for.
Thanks!

Camilo Cano

Just wonderful. Works like a charm. Thanks a lot.

Athanasios Pechlivanis

You are great!!

Thanks a lot, you have saved much of my time!!

joep van berkel

great !!

Ilker Delice

Thanks a lot excellent work

Yaser Ahmed

Fahad Mahmood

Smart function indeed! Good thing for us that you thought about it!

B. Peña

thanks

Rasmus Anthin

Superb! I think it is obvious there should be a reciprocal to the clear function like this in matlab's inherent set of functions.

Till Bockemuehl

Nifty function. Exactly what I was searching for.

Matt Remigy

Thanks !

Suresh Joel

Cool function - simple and useful

MATLAB Release Compatibility
Created with R10
Compatible with any release
Platform Compatibility
Windows macOS Linux
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Acknowledgements

Inspired: keep2, KEEP3, keepfield, Keep4, Clear All But