[SciPy-dev] Patch for writing Matlab structs with long field names

[Matthew Brett]

Hi,

On Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 3:57 PM, Vebjorn Ljosa <ljosa@broad.mit.edu> wrote:
> There is a bug in io/matlab/mio5.py: it can only write structs the file
> names of which are shorter than 32 characters.  I am passing on a patch
> from Lee Kamentsky <leek@broad.mit.edu> that extends this to the 64
> characters, which is what Matlab can handle.

Thanks for the patch, it's good, but - what makes you think matlab can
handle 64 characters of fieldname?  The standard, here:

http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/pdf_doc/matlab/matfile_format.pdf

says:

"Field Name Length Subelement
This subelement specifies the maximum length of a Field Name. MATLAB
sets this limit to 32 (31 characters and a NULL terminator). In a MAT-file
created by MATLAB, this subelement always uses the compressed data
element format."

I take this to mean the maximum field name length is 31 characters.
Have you got other information somewhere?

Thanks again,

Matthew