saveexcept

 function saveexcept(file,vars)

 <file> is a string referring to a .mat file
 <vars> is a variable name or a cell vector of variable names to NOT save

 save all variables that exist in the caller to <file>, 
 except variables named by <vars>.

 example:
 x = 1; y = 2; z = 3;
 saveexcept('temp.mat','z');
 a = load('temp.mat')

0001 function saveexcept(file,vars)
0002 
0003 % function saveexcept(file,vars)
0004 %
0005 % <file> is a string referring to a .mat file
0006 % <vars> is a variable name or a cell vector of variable names to NOT save
0007 %
0008 % save all variables that exist in the caller to <file>,
0009 % except variables named by <vars>.
0010 %
0011 % example:
0012 % x = 1; y = 2; z = 3;
0013 % saveexcept('temp.mat','z');
0014 % a = load('temp.mat')
0015 
0016 % input
0017 if ~iscell(vars)
0018   vars = {vars};
0019 end
0020 
0021 % figure out variable names
0022 varlist = evalin('caller','whos');
0023 varlist = cat(2,{varlist.name});
0024 
0025 % exclude the ones we don't want
0026 ok = cellfun(@(x) ~ismember(x,vars),varlist);
0027 varlist = varlist(ok);
0028 
0029 % save the data
0030 temp = cell2str(varlist);
0031 cmd = sprintf('save ''%s'' %s;',file,temp(3:end-2));
0032 evalin('caller',cmd);