Using Strings in dot notation Matlab - string

Question

I wish to access data within a table with dot notation that includes strings. I have a list of strings representing columns of interest within the table. How can I access data using those strings? I wish to create a loop going through the list of strings.
For example for table T I have columns {a b c d e}. I have a 1x3 cell cols={b d e}.
Can I retrieve data using cols in the format (or equivalent) T.cols(1) to to give me the same result as T.b?

Answer 1

You can fetch directly the data using {curly braces} and strings as column indices as you would for a cell array.
For example, lets's create a dummy table (modified from the docs):
clc;
close all;
LastName = {'Smith';'Johnson';'Williams';'Jones';'Brown'};
a = [38;43;38;40;49];
b = [71;69;64;67;64];
c = [176;163;131;133;119];
d = [124 93; 109 77; 125 83; 117 75; 122 80];
T = table(a,b,c,d,...
'RowNames',LastName)
The table looks like this:
T =
a b c d
__ __ ___ __________
Smith 38 71 176 124 93
Johnson 43 69 163 109 77
Williams 38 64 131 125 83
Jones 40 67 133 117 75
Brown 49 64 119 122 80
Now select columns of interest and get the data:
%// Select columns of interest
cols = {'a' 'c'};
%// Fetch data
T{:,cols}
ans =
38 176
43 163
38 131
40 133
49 119
Yay!