outselect.m

Occasionally you need only the kth output argument of a MATLAB function, where k>1. This function OUTSELECT provides this facility as a 'wrapper' around any other function. It can evaluate and return arguments immediately, or create a new callable function.

For example:
>> str = 'deacb'; [s,idx] = sort(str)
s =
abcde

idx =
3 5 4 1 2

>> [idx,s] = outselect([2 1],@sort,str)
idx =
3 5 4 1 2

s =
abcde

>> argmin = outselect(2,@min);
>> argmin(str)

ans =
3