MATLAB: How to convert a matrix of cells to a regular matrix

cell arrays

Hi! I have matrix of cells that kind of looks like this:
cell = {[8.456]  []      []      [9.456]   [6];
        []       []      [7.89]  []        [6.876];
        []       [5.79]  [5]     []        []}
I would like to convert that int a regular matrix looking like this:
mat = [8.456    0       0      9.456    6;
       0        0       7.89   0        6.876;
       0        5.79    5      0        0]
I have tried str2double, srt2num, cell2mat in combination with different for loops but i haven't managed to solve it yet. I would really appreciate some help with this one!

Best Answer

Without changing the original cell array:
>> C = {8.456,[],[],9.456,6;[],[],7.89,[],6.876;[],5.79,5,[],[]};
>> out = zeros(size(C));
>> out(~cellfun('isempty',C)) = [C{:}]
out =
 8.45600   0.00000   0.00000   9.45600   6.00000
 0.00000   0.00000   7.89000   0.00000   6.87600
 0.00000   5.79000   5.00000   0.00000   0.00000
PS: If those cells really do contain strings/char vectors, then use:
idx = ~cellfun('isempty',C);
out = zeros(size(C));
out(idx) = str2double(C(idx))
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