MATLAB: How to extract the full character string using a FOR loop

Question

I have an array of water quality values, I set any value that is fit for consumption to zero and only those unsuitable for consumption are left as nonzero values in the array. I then create a second array which is the index of each of the unsuitable values:

   ind_unsuit = find (WQI_Belayhari_unsuit);

I want to use this index array to extract the names of the locations of each sample. The names of the all of the sampling locations are stored in a character array:

   SL_Belayhari = char(SL_Belayhari);

I am able to extract the first character of each name using the following code:

   loc_unsuit = ones(size(ind_unsuit));
   for j=1:length(ind_unsuit);
      [loc_unsuit(j)] = SL_Belayhari(ind_unsuit(j));
   end

My question is, how can I extract the full character string, so that I can access the complete name of the location of each sample, rather than simply the first character?

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Is SL_Belayhari a character vector (string), or is it a character array in which each row is a location (blank padded if need be)?

Have you considered the alternative of using a cell array of strings instead of a character array?

SL_Belayhari = {'Station 1', 'Station 73', 'Blue Pump House'};
for j=1:length(ind_unsuit);
  loc_unsuit{j} = SL_Belayhari{ind_unsuit(j)};
end

which could then be shortened to

loc_unsuit = SL_Belayhari(ind_unsuit);

with no "for" loop