MATLAB: Maintaining relative positions of each elements of the resulting array after applying Union()

Question

Hi,

I have a question regarding Matlab's Union.

Suppose I have the following two string arrays.

x1 = ["assets"; "fixed asset"; "total assets"; "short-term bank loans";                         "revenue"; "equity"];
x2 = ["assets"; "fixed asset"; "total assets";                          "long-term bank loans"; "revenue"; "equity"];

If I do this

x3 = union(x1,x2,'stable')

Then the result is

x3 = ["assets"; "fixed asset"; "total assets"; "short-term bank loans"; "revenue"; "equity"; "long-term bank loans"]; % result

But what I want is

x3 = ["assets"; "fixed asset"; "total assets"; "short-term bank loans"; "long-term bank loans"; "revenue"; "equity"]; % what I want

Any help or suggestions are appreciated. Thank you very much.

Aditya

PS This is not a homework problem.

Answer 1

x3 = [x1.'; x2.'];
mask = [true(1, length(x1)); x3(1,:) ~= x3(2,:)];
x3 = x3(mask);