MATLAB: Find ascii numbers from cells

Question

I would like to find ascii numbers from cells. My file has words/letters (cell arrays). I would like to calculate ascii number for each cell.

Could you help me please?

Answer 1

Matlab stores characters as Unicode characters which incorporates the ASCII character set as the first 128 sumbols.

Convert characters -->Unicode/ASCII using double('__')

Convert Unicode/ASCII-->characters using char(__)

See documentation for more info.

double('a')
ans = 97
double('Matlab')
ans = 1×6
    77    97   116   108    97    98
char([77 97 116 108 97 98])
ans = 'Matlab'
double('?')  % Not ASCII
ans = 1×2
       55357       56846

To apply that to a cell array,

z = {'Here','is an','example','!',''}; 
a = cellfun(@double, z, 'UniformOutput', false)
a = 1x5 cell array
    {1×4 double}    {1×5 double}    {1×7 double}    {[33]}    {0×0 double}
a{1} % "Here"
ans = 1×4
    72   101   114   101
a{2} % "is an"
ans = 1×5
   105   115    32    97   110

--or--

v = cell2mat(cellfun(@double, z, 'UniformOutput', false)) 
v = 1×17
    72   101   114   101   105   115    32    97   110   101   120    97   109   112   108   101    33

Put the cell array of ASCII codes back into char vector

c = strjoin(cellfun(@char, a, 'UniformOutput', false))
c = 'Here is an example ! '