Illegal use of reserved keyword "for".

I have the following code which replaces text when I directly put a string in the "nextLine" statement, however when I try to input elements of a cell array with a delimiter the function breaks at the "for" statement. Can anybody please explain how I am using this incorrectly, or direct me to a better way to format this input?

Thank you for your time.

function replaceLine(inputPath,outputPath)

    inputFile = fopen(inputPath,'r');
    outputFile = fopen(outputPath,'w');

    while ~feof(inputFile)
        nextLine = fgets(inputFile);
        if any(contains(strsplit(nextLine,'3 3'),'3 ')) %first repsonses
            newLine = '' for n = 1:length(cell{1,1})
            newLine = [newLine '' cell{1,1}(n)]
            end
        end

        fprintf(outputFile,nextLine);
    end

    fclose(inputFile);
    fclose(outputFile);
end

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

Instead of this

newLine = '' for n = 1:length(cell{1,1})

You should do this:

newLine = '';
for n = 1:length(cell{1,1})

(adding a semicolon or comma would be sufficient, but putting the code on two lines is much clearer)

[Matt b]

Thank you. This made the for statement valid. However now MATLAB is not recognizing "cell" as a valid function or variable despite it being present in my workspace. Do you have any idea what might cause this? Would it be related to how I am trying to access it within a function?

[Stephen23]

You seem to have shadowed the inbuilt cell function with a variable named cell. It is invariably a bad idea to shadow any inbuilt function, so the best solution is to clear your variable from memory and change its name.

Before using a name you should check if it is already used:

which cell -all

[Matt b]

Thank you for your time. I have fixed this by declaring the variables as global because they were not accessible by the function workspace. I have a lot to learn about becoming a better programmer, but this accomplishes the task at hand for now.

[Stephen23]

@Matt b: declaring variables as global is the opposite of learning to be a better programmer.

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_prog/share-data-between-workspaces.html

https://blogs.mathworks.com/videos/2010/03/08/top-10-matlab-code-practices-that-make-me-cry/

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/332403-global-variables-in-a-guide-gui

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/51946-systematic-do-not-use-global-don-t-use-eval