MATLAB: How to remove duplicates from a structure array

Question

Suppose I create the following structure:

    animals(1).name='Northern Mockingbird';
    animals(1).class='Bird';
    animals(2).name='Cheetah';
    animals(2).class='mammal';
    animals(3).name='Wolf';
    animals(3).class='mammal';
    animals(4).name='Eagle';
    animals(4).class='Bird';
    animals(5).name='Turtle';
    animals(5).class='Reptile';
    animals(6).name='Bee';
    animals(6).class='Insect';
    animals(7).name='Chameleon';
    animals(7).class='Reptile';
    animals(8).name='Barn Spider';
    animals(8).class='Arachnid';
    animals(9).name='Ant';
    animals(9).class='Insect';
    animals(10).name='Northern Cardinal';
    animals(10).class='Bird';

Then I set animals(11) equal to animals(4), then I sort the whole thing through a littany of conversions/reshapings, the sortrows command and another littany of conversions/reshapings.

Is there some way to remove the duplicate entries from that array of structures?

Answer 1

a= {animals.name}
b= {animals.class}
c=cellfun(@(x,y) [x y],a', b','un',0)
[ii,ii]=unique(c,'stable')
animals=animals(ii)