MATLAB: Problem to concatenate table due to “cell and non cell” error

Question

Hello,

I have a script that reads 2 TXT files to two tables (one is significantly larger than the other). then I add both table the columb 'detector' to the 4th column (both tables structure is identicle, and supposed to be the same types of variable to all columns). for some reason I'm getting this error : "Cannot concatenate the table variable 'detector' because it is a cell in one table and a non-cell in another."

the script works fine with smaller files.

is matlab chaneging the type of the variable due to the size?

this is the script:

Ge_table = readtable(hpge_file);  %

Ge_table.Properties.VariableNames = {'time_stamp', 'energy','time_adjusted'};
scint_table = readtable(pmt_file); %
scint_table.Properties.VariableNames = {'time_stamp', 'energy','time_adjusted'};
Ge_table(:,4) = {1}; 
Ge_table.Properties.VariableNames{4} = 'detector';
scint_table(:,4) = {0};      
scint_table.Properties.VariableNames{4} = 'detector';
coince_table = vertcat(Ge_table, scint_table);

Thanks!

Answer 1

One possibility is that the cell / non-cell mismatch is being caused by a different column in the table.

Here are two ways you can quickly see if there's any mismatches in variable types between two columns.

1) look at the first few rows of each table.

head(Ge_table)
head(scint_table)

If you're unsure what to look for, leave a comment that contains the content of those two outputs.

2) Look at the variable classes for each column, for each table. Do they match?

GeTblClasses = varfun(@class,Ge_table,'OutputFormat','cell'); 
scintTblClasses = varfun(@class,scint_table,'OutputFormat','cell');