MATLAB: Converting multiple cells to an equivilent character vector defining the original array

cellcharacterMATLABpreallocate

As part of an app, I need to use a cell array containing characters to generate a string of text that when pasted in the command window would generate the original cell array as a variable.

input example: the 1×4 cell array named 'legText' with the below contents.

{'Indexed'} {'Forsterite'} {'Enstatite'} {'Diopside'}

Desired output (as a character vector)

legText={'Indexed','Forsterite','Enstatite','Diopside'};

I've been doing this by appending to a character vector in a loop without preallocation, but this is pretty inefficient. Is there a better method?

Thanks, Jessica.

Best Answer

fprintf('legText = cellstr(%s);\n', mat2str(string(legText)))

fprintf('legText = {'); fprintf('''%s'',', legText{:}); fprintf('};\n');

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MATLAB: Non-rectangular text file upload

This will do it:

fid = fopen('data.csv');
tline = fgetl(fid);
while ischar(tline)
  ind = find(tline==',',1,'first');
  eval([tline(1:ind-1) '= [' tline(ind+1:end),']']);
  tline = fgetl(fid);
end
fclose(fid)

If you don't want to see the output, you can replace the eval line by

   S = evalc([tline(1:ind-1) '= [' tline(ind+1:end),']']);

EDIT: If you wish to follow Walter's advice and put all your variables in a structure, you could do the following:

fid = fopen('data.csv');
S = struct;
tline = fgetl(fid);
while ischar(tline)
  ind = find(tline==',',1,'first');
  S.(tline(1:ind-1)) = str2num(tline(ind+1:end));
  tline = fgetl(fid);
end
fclose(fid);

MATLAB: Splitting cell array of both strings and numbers by a delimiter

The simplest thing would be to convert these NaNs into strings of 'NaN~NaN' and then use the same algorithm as in my previous answer to convert the cell array:

Depthcm(cellfun(@(x) isnumeric(x) && isnan(x), Depthcm)) = {'NaN~NaN'};
splitdepth = regexp(Depthcm, '~', 'split');
bounds = str2double(vertcat(splitdepth{:}));

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MATLAB: Splitting cell array of both strings and numbers by a delimiter

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