How to force MATLAB to return all values in a nested function call?

Question

I find it impossible to write MATLAB code without creating a huge number of superfluous, single-use variables.

For example, suppose function foo returns

Answer 1

As nirvana-msu said, it is not possible to do the task without creating temporary variables. But it is possible to handle it within a function and even with varargin and varargout. Inspired by this answer on my question, you can define and use the following function:

function varargout = redirect(F1, F2, count, list, varargin)
    output = cell(1, count);
    [output{:}] = F2(varargin{:});
    varargout = cell(1, max(nargout, 1));
    [varargout{:}] = F1(output(list));
end

For instance, in your example you can write result = redirect(@bar, @foo, 3, [1:3], 5);