From bc37854ef58c060cc68d231606df5ba2e778b550 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Matthijs Cox <matthijs.cox@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2025 12:02:40 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] Symbol and Tuple support

---
 src/MAT_HDF5.jl | 10 ++++++++++
 test/write.jl   | 34 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++------
 2 files changed, 38 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/MAT_HDF5.jl b/src/MAT_HDF5.jl
index 711e39a..46da353 100644
--- a/src/MAT_HDF5.jl
+++ b/src/MAT_HDF5.jl
@@ -552,6 +552,16 @@ function m_write(mfile::MatlabHDF5File, parent::HDF5Parent, name::String, c::Abs
     m_write(mfile, parent, name, string(c))
 end
 
+# Tuple
+function m_write(mfile::MatlabHDF5File, parent::HDF5Parent, name::String, t::Tuple)
+    m_write(mfile, parent, name, [x for x in t])
+end
+
+# Symbol
+function m_write(mfile::MatlabHDF5File, parent::HDF5Parent, name::String, s::Symbol)
+    m_write(mfile, parent, name, string(s))
+end
+
 # Write cell arrays
 function m_write(mfile::MatlabHDF5File, parent::HDF5Parent, name::String, data::AbstractArray{T}, object_decode::UInt32=UInt32(0)) where T
     data = _normalize_arr(data)
diff --git a/test/write.jl b/test/write.jl
index 64a0391..95eb47d 100644
--- a/test/write.jl
+++ b/test/write.jl
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 using MAT, Test, Dates
+using SparseArrays, LinearAlgebra
 
 tmpfile = string(tempname(), ".mat")
 
@@ -150,12 +151,33 @@ test_write(Dict("reshape_arr"=>reshape([1 2 3;4 5 6;7 8 9]',1,9)))
 test_write(Dict("adjoint_arr"=>Any[1 2 3;4 5 6;7 8 9]'))
 test_write(Dict("reshape_arr"=>reshape(Any[1 2 3;4 5 6;7 8 9]',1,9)))
 
-# named tuple
-nt = (x = 5, y = Any[6, "string"])
-matwrite(tmpfile, Dict("nt" => nt))
-nt_read = matread(tmpfile)["nt"]
-@test nt_read["x"] == 5
-@test nt_read["y"] == nt.y
+@testset "named tuple" begin
+    nt = (x = 5, y = Any[6, "string"])
+    matwrite(tmpfile, Dict("nt" => nt))
+    nt_read = matread(tmpfile)["nt"]
+    @test nt_read["x"] == 5
+    @test nt_read["y"] == nt.y
+end
+
+@testset "tuple" begin
+    # NTuple{T}
+    t = (5, 6)
+    matwrite(tmpfile, Dict("t" => (5, 6)))
+    r = matread(tmpfile)["t"]
+    @test r == [x for x in t]
+
+    # otherwise cell array
+    t = (5, "string")
+    matwrite(tmpfile, Dict("t" => t))
+    r = matread(tmpfile)["t"]
+    @test r == [x for x in t]
+end
+
+@testset "symbol" begin
+    matwrite(tmpfile, Dict("s" => :symbol))
+    r = matread(tmpfile)["s"]
+    @test r == "symbol"
+end
 
 # test nested struct array - interface via Dict array
 @testset "MatlabStructArray writing" begin