MATLAB: Select part of a string

select part of a stringstringsubstring

I have a large column vector of strings. The strings vary in length. I would like to select out the last 5 characters of the actual string (i.e., I don't want 5 blank spaces that you would get by converting it to a char array and then selecting the last 5 columns).
I have a complicated way of doing this by switching between a string array and a character array and using sub2ind, but I was wondering if there is a simpler way to do this. I've tried using strtok and flip, but can't get it to do exactly what I want.
If possible, I'd like to avoid using a loop (because of the size of the array).
If you use excel, I want to do the equivalent of the RIGHT function.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated! Thanks.

Best Answer

A string array treats each string as being atomic, whereas you need to be able to access each character as atomic. Use cellstr to convert to a cell array of chars, and then use cellfun to extract the parts you need:
 cellfun(@(s)s(end-4:end),cellstr(inp),'uni',0)
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