How to create a string array and access the elements without throwing "COMMAND must be a string scalar or character vector" error?

Hi, I am trying to have a command that operates on a series of different strings (specifically, different file names). Normally I would use fullfile and something with an asterisk marker to get all the files I want from a folder, but in this case, each file has a very distinct name, and if I try to use my normal method I will end up with way too many files.

I tried to pass in the file names by using a strings array [dumps=strings(fname1,fname2,fname3,fname4,fname5)], which gave me the following 5x1 string array:

"/fslgroup/compute/Al_Dataset/refilledDump/rstruct_S3_fcc_N1_1_1_Al_M99_201228.553.out"
"/fslgroup/compute/Al_Dataset/refilledDump/rstruct_S7_fcc_Nn29_n2_10_Al_M99_201228.151.out"
"/fslgroup/compute/Al_Dataset/refilledDump/rstruct_S23_fcc_Nn45_49_109_Al_M99_201228.1424.out"
"/fslgroup/compute/Al_Dataset/refilledDump/rstruct_S27b_fcc_N23_n19_1_Al_M99_210713.5462.out"
"/fslgroup/compute/Al_Dataset/refilledDump/rstruct_S197c_fcc_Nn109_n223_53_Al_M99_200714.31.out"

This array was then submitted to the following function:

function [] = plotSimBox(dumpFiles)

for i=1:length(dumpFiles)
    [~,BBox,~,~]=GBMD.loadDumpFile(dumpFiles(i));
    etc.

The loadDumpFile function takes in a file name as an input, so that's what it's looking for. Even though each element of this array is a string, when I try to access them in this way, I receive the error "COMMAND must be a string scalar or character vector." Here's the complete error message:

Error using GBMD.loadDumpFile (line 634)
COMMAND must be a string scalar or character vector.

Error in plotSimBox (line 7)
    [~,BBox,~,~]=GBMD.loadDumpFile(dumpFiles(i));

I'm not sure if there's a better way to construct an array of strings or to access them?

Answer 1

[Fangjun Jiang]

This error might be particular to the GBMD.loadDumpFile(). Can you try either one of these

1. Make a temp variable, such as tempVar=dumpFiles(i); and then GBMD.loadDumpFile(tempVar)
2. try GBMD.loadDumpFile(char(dumpFiles(i)))

[Fangjun Jiang]

This reply was added and later deleted by the OP.

@Fangjun Jiang, your comment worked for me. I had tried a temp variable and I had tried using string string(dumpFiles(i)), but I hadn't tried char, which ended up working. Thanks!

[Fangjun Jiang]

Althouth this is a workaround, the original error message indicated that the code inside GBMD.loadDumpFile() is not robust, as tempVar=dumpFiles(i) is a string scalar.

Or indeed, GBMD.loadDumpFile() only accepts char array, and then whatever "COMMAND" was constructed based on that char array.