How to save a structure array to a text file - arrays

Question

In MATLAB how do I save a structure array to a text file so that it displays everything the structure array shows in the command window?

Answer 1

I know this thread is old but I hope it's still going to help someone:
I think this is an shorter solution (with the constraint that each struct field can contain scalar,arrays or strings):
%assume that your struct array is named data
temp_table = struct2table(data);
writetable(temp_table,'data.csv')
Now your struct array is stored in the data.csv file. The column names are the field names of a struct and the rows are the different single-structs of your struct-array

Answer 2

You have to define a format for your file first.
Saving to a MATLAB workspace file (.MAT)
If you don't care about the format, and simply want to be able to load the data at a later time, use save, for example:
save 'myfile.mat' structarr
That stores struct array structarr in a binary MAT file named "file.mat". To read it back into your workspace you can use load:
load 'myfile.mat'
Saving as comma-separated values (.CSV)
If you want to save your struct array in a text file as comma-separated value pairs, where each pair contains the field name and its value, you can something along these lines:
%// Extract field data
fields = repmat(fieldnames(structarr), numel(structarr), 1);
values = struct2cell(structarr);
%// Convert all numerical values to strings
idx = cellfun(#isnumeric, values);
values(idx) = cellfun(#num2str, values(idx), 'UniformOutput', 0);
%// Combine field names and values in the same array
C = {fields{:}; values{:}};
%// Write fields to CSV file
fid = fopen('myfile.csv', 'wt');
fmt_str = repmat('%s,', 1, size(C, 2));
fprintf(fid, [fmt_str(1:end - 1), '\n'], C{:});
fclose(fid);
This solution assumes that each field contains a scalar value or a string, but you can extend it as you see fit, of course.

Answer 3

To convert any data type to a character vector as displayed in the MATLAB command window, use the function
str = matlab.unittest.diagnostics.ConstraintDiagnostic.getDisplayableString(yourArray);
You can then write the contents to a file
fid = fopen('myFile.txt', 'w');
fwrite(fid, str, '*char');
fclose(fid);