It is always a good idea to use an array instead of separate variable names: https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/304528-tutorial-why-variables-should-not-be-named-dynamically-eval. However, the following shows a somewhat acceptable way
function [ret_val] = filename(varargin)
[val_1, val_2, val_3, val_4] = varargin{:};
ret_val = val_1*val_3 - val_4 + val_2;
end
Call it like this
y = filename(1, 2, 3, 4)