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I have a path (without a file name at the end) as a string in Matlab and i want to receive the first parent directory (the directory after the last file seperator character) in it.
At the moment i'm doing it like this:

>>filePath = 'D:\TRAIN_DATA\OBSTACLES\DOF';
>>firstParent = strsplit(filePath , filesep);
>>firstParent = firstParent{end};
>>disp(firstParent);
DOF

Is there any way i can use strsplit's return value (a cell array) without assinging it to a variable first?
Something like: 
>>filePath = 'D:\TRAIN_DATA\OBSTACLES\DOF';
>>firstParent = ( strsplit(filePath , filesep) ){end};
>>disp(firstParent);
DOF
Semih SÜZEN
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1 Answers1

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Do you mean:

[~,firstParent] = fileparts ( 'D:\TRAIN_DATA\OBSTACLES\DOF' )
matlabgui
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  • Yes this solves the specific example i gave to my question. I can receive the first parent directory with this statement. But there are other examples of this problem in my code that i'm actually trying to get the answer. Can i get the n. element of a cell array returned from a function like: `nThElement = aFunctionThatReturnsACellArray(){n};` Not like: `nThElement = aFunctionThatReturnsACellArray(); nThElement = nThElement{n};` – Semih SÜZEN Aug 15 '17 at 13:05
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    For the general case, I don't know of any _elegant_ way to do this without using an intermediate variable, but there are [a number of ugly or undocumented ways](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3627107/how-can-i-index-a-matlab-array-returned-by-a-function-without-first-assigning-it) such as using `subsref`, `getfield` or intermediate functions. – Tom Aug 15 '17 at 13:30
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    There is no elegant way, it isn't a feature of the MATLAB language, parentheses `()` must be at the end of a statement if used. This is possible in Octave, but that's a whole other can of worms. – Wolfie Aug 15 '17 at 13:31