MATLAB: Indexing array to multiple substrings

regexpstrfind

Hi all,

I have a nx1 cell array (called names), each cell containing characters. For example

names={'A_info','B_info','C_info','D_info'}

I have another mx1 cell array (called tags) with tags that I know exist in the nx1 cell array and I want to find the whole string which contains any of the tags and which is stored in the nx1 cell. E.g.

tags={'A','B'}

Is there a way, without a loop, to find the total string containing substrings in tags? That is, using tags I want to find the full strings A_info and B_info, but not C_info and D_info

Thanks in advance for the help!

Best Answer

ismatch = ~cellfun('isempty', regexp(names, strjoin(regexptranslate('escape', tags), '|')));
result = names(ismatch)

The regexptranslate step is unneeded in your example. I've put it there in case your real tags contain special regular expression characters (such as ().+*$^[]?{}) that need to be escaped.

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You're complicating your life by using a cell array to store scalar structures. Notwithstanding the extra memory used, it's an unnecessary level of indirection you don't need.

I would recommend converting that cell array into either a structure array or a table with actual strings (not char vectors) both of which are easier to use (table being the easiest).

Using a structure array:

tags = vertcat(tags{:});  %convert 1xN cell array of 1x1 structures with the same field into a Nx1 cell array. 
%now find which elements of the structure have 'value' equal to something:
isforest = strcrmp({tags.values}, 'forest');  %logical vector. use find if you do need to convert it to indices. However logical vectors are often better.

Using a table of strings:

tags = struct2table(vertcat(tags{:})); %convert to structure then table
tags = convertvas(tags, 1:2, 'string');  %convert cell arrays of char vector into string array
isforest = tags.values == "forest";  %again use find if you need actual indices

Best Answer

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