Hello!

Loading .mat files with scipy.io.loadmat returns a rather complex dict object with nested struct arrays. If the .mat file contains cell arrays, the resulting structure is particularly hard to parse for humans (see e.g. https://github.com/scipy/scipy/issues/7895). For this reason, people have come up with conversion routines that simplify the result of io.loadmat (e.g. http://blog.nephics.com/2019/08/28/better-loadmat-for-scipy).

Simple example using the following MATLAB struct (download the .mat file here: https://github.com/scipy/scipy/files/1314287/matlab.zip):

>> s = struct('mycell', {{'a', 'b', 'c'}});

Accessing the value 'a'  with scipy.io.loadmat:

>>> mat["s"]["mycell"][0, 0][0, 0][0]
'a'

The solution from the blog post provides easier access to the same value because the nested struct arrays get flattened:

>>> mat1["s"]["mycell"][0]
'a'

In https://github.com/scipy/scipy/issues/7895 we propose to add such an alternative return value structure to scipy.io.loadmat.

Do you think this is a useful addition that should be included?

If so, what would be the best way to integrate it? Should scipy.io.loadmat get a new keyword argument that influences what is returned (i.e. the default behavior should return the current value, whereas setting the kwarg to a specific value would return the alternative value)? Or should there be a new function that gets the current value and converts it to the alternative structure?

Thanks!
Clemens
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