Hello Lilly,
If your data really is time-based then you should consider formatting the data to be a timetable, which have Properties that you can populate with various metadata. Here's an example (straight from Matlab help for timetable):
MeasurementTime = datetime({'2015-12-18 08:03:05';'2015-12-18 10:03:17';'2015-12-18 12:03:13'});
Temp = [37.3;39.1;42.3];
Pressure = [30.1;30.03;29.9];
WindSpeed = [13.4;6.5;7.3];
WindDirection = categorical({'NW';'N';'NW'});
TT = timetable(MeasurementTime,Temp,Pressure,WindSpeed,WindDirection)
TT =
3×4 timetable
MeasurementTime Temp Pressure WindSpeed WindDirection
____________________ ____ ________ _________ _____________
18-Dec-2015 08:03:05 37.3 30.1 13.4 NW
18-Dec-2015 10:03:17 39.1 30.03 6.5 N
18-Dec-2015 12:03:13 42.3 29.9 7.3 NW
Matlab timetables are really easy to work with once you get used to them. Now that you have this timetable (TT), you can access its properties, like so:
TT.Properties
ans =
TimetableProperties with properties:
Description: ''
UserData: []
DimensionNames: {'MeasurementTime' 'Variables'}
VariableNames: {'Temp' 'Pressure' 'WindSpeed' 'WindDirection'}
VariableDescriptions: {}
VariableUnits: {}
VariableContinuity: []
RowTimes: [3×1 datetime]
StartTime: 18-Dec-2015 08:03:05
SampleRate: NaN
TimeStep: NaN
CustomProperties: No custom properties are set.
Use addprop and rmprop to modify CustomProperties.
Notice that there are lots of fields in here you can use to capture metadata. You can define the Description field:
TT.Properties.Description = 'My example time table' % Or whatever you want
The Properties.UserData field is sort of a catch-all where you can literally put any and all information you could possibly want in there. You can even define your own properties for the table via the CustomProperties option.
Once you have it the way you want, simply save the timetable variable to a file of your choosing. When you reload it into Matlab, all of those properties you set will still be there.
I hope this helps!
Paul Shoemaker
MatlabInvesting.com
