MATLAB: Convert cell array with different datatypes to numeric

cell arraysconvert datatype

Hi everybody,
I am dealing with a cell array, where single numbers are saved as strings in the cells and some cells are empty. So cell2mat does not work. I want to convert the vector to double while keeping the numbers and replacing the empty cells with NaN.
What would be the fastest way to do this?
Best

Best Answer

As you only have "single numbers" in the cells, then you can use str2double directly on the cell array:
>> A = {'123',[],'4','5678',[],'90'};
>> str2double(A)
ans = [123,NaN,4,5678,NaN,90]
The documentation states: "If str does not represent a valid scalar value, str2double returns NaN."