MATLAB: Find first non-NaN in each column of array & combine into one vector

array to vectorfirst non-nan

I am trying to:
1) Identify the first non-NaN value of each column in an array, and convert the rest to NaN
2) Identify the first non-NaN value of each row in the array, and convert the rest to NaN
3) Combine these numbers back into one column vector
I have created something that looks roughly like this (although much larger):
X =
2 NaN NaN NaN
4 6 NaN NaN
NaN NaN NaN NaN
5 4 7 8
After the first step (keeping only the first number in each column), I would hope to have this:
Xa =
2 NaN NaN NaN
NaN 6 NaN NaN
NaN NaN NaN NaN
NaN NaN 7 8
After the second step (keeping only the first number in each row), I would hope to have this:
Xb =
2 NaN NaN NaN
NaN 6 NaN NaN
NaN NaN NaN NaN
NaN NaN 7 NaN
Lastly, I would want to turn this into one column (there should only be NaN's or 1 non-NaN value in each row – I would want it to keep whichever is there)
Xc =
2
6
NaN
7
I apologize for not having any attempted code for this. I appear to have gotten stuck in the doorway of this one…

Best Answer

X = [2   NaN NaN  NaN;
     4    6  NaN  NaN;
    NaN  NaN NaN  NaN;
     5    4   7    8 ]
[m,n] = size(X);
[I,J] = ndgrid(1:m,1:n);
Xa = X;
[~,r]=max(isfinite(Xa),[],1);
Xa(I>r) = NaN
Xb = Xa;
[~,c]=max(isfinite(Xb),[],2);
Xb(J>c) = NaN
[~,c]=max(isfinite(Xb),[],2);
Xc = Xb(sub2ind([m,n],(1:m)',c))
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