# copyright Sergei steshenko, 2012.
# released under 3 clause BSD license.
# tested under octave-3.6.2.
# Matlab (tm) user are explicitly encouraged to to trivially modify the code ('#' -> '%') if they like it and wnat to use it.
# the function is supposed to implement functionality similar to associative arrays in Perl/Python/C++

function os = consistent_struct(varargin)
  if(rem(length(varargin),2))
    error("there must be even number of input arguments");
  endif

  for struct_field_number = 1:2:length(varargin)
    #fprintf(stderr, "key: %s\n", varargin{struct_field_number});
    key = varargin{struct_field_number}; # no check of 'key' correctness is performed
    val = varargin{struct_field_number + 1};
    eval(sprintf("os.%s=val;", key));
    # the above 'eval' is ugly, but I do not know how to do it better - I need some kind of 'add_field_value_pair_to_struct' function
  endfor
endfunction


# comment out the following test cases if you want yo just use the function
os = consistent_struct("one", [1 2 3], "two", [5 6 7 8; 9 10 11 12], "three", 33, "four", {"foo", 44, "bar"});

# Przemek Klosowski's test case:
samples = consistent_struct\
            (
	    "patient", {"Bob", "Kevin", "Bob" , "Andrew"},
            "age",     [ 45  ,  52    ,  45   ,  23     ],
            "protein", {"H2B", "CDK2" , "CDK2", "Tip60" },
            "tube"   , [ 3   ,  5     ,  2    ,  18     ]
            );