Load data by one button, plot data by a second button - excel

Question

I have a GUI in Matlab, and several buttons, by one button I need to load a file (I don't want the directory to be shown) and by second button plot determined data.
Code for the first button:
[filename, pathname] = uigetfile({'*.xlsx;*.xls'});
Code for the second button:
fileID = fopen(strcat(pathname, filename), 'r');
handles.fileData = xlsread(strcat(pathname, filename));
axes(handles.axes1);
plot(handles.fileData(:,1),'-k')
hold on;
axes(handles.axes1)
plot(handles.fileData(:,2),'k')
I get an error message all the time:
Undefined function or variable 'pathname'.
HOw can I pass the function to the second button?
Thanks for your help in advance!

Answer 1

Ad hoc solution is using: setappdata and getappdata.
Example:
function pushbutton1_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
setappdata(0, 'pathname', 'abc');
function pushbutton2_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
pathname = getappdata(0, 'pathname'); % Return 'abc'.
Another simple solution is passing pathname in UserData member of the parent figure.
When both buttons are in the same figure, hObject.Parent is the handle to the figure, and UserData element is a "preparation" for passing data between GUI objects.
Example:
function pushbutton1_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
hObject.Parent.UserData.pathname = 'abs';
function pushbutton2_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
pathname = hObject.Parent.UserData.pathname; %Value is 'abc'
For more information refer to: https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/creating_guis/share-data-among-callbacks.html
Complete code sample without using guide tool:
I created the following sample without using guide tool because there is no simple way passing the fig file of guide in Stack Overflow.
function TestNoGuide()
clear all
close all
% Create figure
hObject = figure('position', [800 400 260 100], 'Toolbar','none');
% create structure of handles
handles = guihandles(hObject);
handles.hObject = hObject;
handles.pushbutton1 = uicontrol('style', 'pushbutton', 'position',[10 20 100 40], 'string' , 'Button1');
handles.pushbutton2 = uicontrol('style', 'pushbutton', 'position',[150 20 100 40], 'string' , 'Button2');
set(handles.pushbutton1, 'callback', {#pushbutton1_Callback, handles});
set(handles.pushbutton2, 'callback', {#pushbutton2_Callback, handles});
%Save the structure
guidata(hObject);
end
function pushbutton1_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
[filename, pathname] = uigetfile({'*.xlsx;*.xls'});
setappdata(0, 'filename', filename);
setappdata(0, 'pathname', pathname);
end
function pushbutton2_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
filename = getappdata(0, 'filename');
pathname = getappdata(0, 'pathname');
waitfor(warndlg(['filename = ', filename, ' pathname = ', pathname]));
end
Check it out, and tell me if it's working on your machine...