MATLAB: How can we find the non common strings from multiple columns

strings

any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Best Answer

First lets find the strings that are common to all cell arrays:
listA={'India','Iran','Ireland','Israel','Jordan','Kuwait','Lebanon','Lesotho','Libya','Luxembourg','Malawi','Maldives','Morocco','Nepal','Netherlands','Norway','Oman','Paraguay','Peru','Philippines',};
listB={'Denmark','El Salvador','Gabon','Gambia','Lebanon','Lesotho','Libya','Luxembourg','Malawi','Maldives','Morocco','Nepal','Netherlands','Norway','Oman','Paraguay','Peru','Philippines','Qatar','Rwanda','Saudi Arabia','Senegal','Singapore','Sudan'};
listC={'Kuwait','Lebanon','Lesotho','Nepal','Netherlands','Oman','Sweden','Syria','Tanzania','Turkey','Uruguay'};
%

lists = {listA,listB,listC}; % storing data together makes working with them much simpler.
%
exc = lists{1};
for k = 2:numel(lists)
    exc = intersect(exc,lists{k});
end
giving the strings found in all cell arrays as:
 exc =
    'Lebanon'
    'Lesotho'
    'Nepal'
    'Netherlands'
    'Oman'
Now we can easily get the input cell arrays with the strings from exc removed:
out = cell(size(lists));
for k = 1:numel(lists)
    out{k} = setdiff(lists{k},exc);
end
giving:
>> out{:}
ans = 
    'India' 'Iran' 'Ireland' 'Israel' 'Jordan' 'Kuwait' 'Libya' 'Luxembourg' 'Malawi' 'Maldives' 'Morocco' 'Norway' 'Paraguay' 'Peru' 'Philippines'
ans =
    'Denmark' 'El Salvador' 'Gabon' 'Gambia' 'Libya' 'Luxembourg' 'Malawi' 'Maldives' 'Morocco' 'Norway' 'Paraguay' 'Peru' 'Philippines' 'Qatar' 'Rwanda' 'Saudi Arabia' 'Senegal' 'Singapore' 'Sudan'
ans =
    'Kuwait' 'Sweden' 'Syria' 'Tanzania' 'Turkey' 'Uruguay'
And if you want a list of all strings together, excluding those in exc:
uni = {};
for k = 1:numel(lists)
    uni = union(uni,lists{k});
end
uni = setdiff(uni,exc)
gives:
uni =
    'Denmark' 'El Salvador' 'Gabon' 'Gambia' 'India' 'Iran' 'Ireland' 'Israel' 'Jordan' 'Kuwait' 'Libya' 'Luxembourg' 'Malawi' 'Maldives' 'Morocco' 'Norway' 'Paraguay' 'Peru' 'Philippines' 'Qatar' 'Rwanda' 'Saudi Arabia' 'Senegal' 'Singapore' 'Sudan' 'Sweden' 'Syria' 'Tanzania' 'Turkey' 'Uruguay'
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