MATLAB: Cell2mat not working when cell array of type char has numbers of different lengths

Question

Hello – I read in header and data information from files using xlsread. The text fields are returned in single column in a cell array of type char (for example "2014abc1-5ab" or "303abc2-5ab"). I need to separate the first set of digits, and I'd like it to be ultimately in a numeric array.

I current do:

[A, B] = xlsread('data.xls');
C = regexp(B,'\d*','match', 'once');
D = cell2mat(C);
E = str2num(D);

when B = {'2014abc1-5ab'; '2024abc1-5ab'}; The code works as desired. when B = {'2014abc1-5ab'; '303abc1-5ab'}; The code crashes in the cell2mat function. I've traced the problem to the 2014 and 303 being a different number of digits. Ultimately, I'd just like a column of the first numbers in B. B = [2014; 303]. I'm open to any suggestions to make the whole process cleaner.

Thanks!

Answer 1

c = regexp(B,'^\d*','match');
out = str2double([c{:}]');