MATLAB Programming Fundamentals - MathWorks

Support Variable Number of Outputs

This example shows how to define a function that returns a variable number of output

arguments using varargout. Output varargout is a cell array that contains the

function outputs, where each output is in its own cell.

Create a function in a file named magicfill.m that assigns a magic square to each

requested output.

function varargout = magicfill

nOutputs = nargout;

varargout = cell(1,nOutputs);

for k = 1:nOutputs

varargout{k} = magic(k);

end

Indexing with curly braces {} updates the contents of a cell.

Call magicfill and request three outputs.

[first,second,third] = magicfill

first =

1

second =

1 3

4 2

third =

8 1 6

3 5 7

4 9 2

MATLAB assigns values to the outputs according to their order in the varargout array.

For example, first == varargout{1}.

You can use varargout alone in an output argument list, or at the end of the list of

outputs, such as

function [x,y,varargout] = myfunction(a,b)

21 Function Arguments