getting a cell array of string into a matrix or table Matlab

Question

I'm gathering information from calculations performed on some data and stored into arrays. I also have some info about these data coming from a text file which now and then contains strings.

The strings from the text files got saved into a {} cell array of strings such as:

strings={'s1' 's2' 's3'};
a=[1 2 3]

What the strings and arrays contain is generated based on a few conditionals from the data present in the text file as well as some data I have in matlab through a loop doing things like that:

srings{e}=blablahFromSomewhere{e}
a(e)=otherNumericalBlahBlahFromSomwehre(e+6)

Ultimately I want to joint this into a table. I would normally do this:

T=[a(:) strings(:)]

But I'm facing the following error:

Error using horzcat
Dimensions of matrices being concatenated are not consistent.

Can anyone help? I don't really want to transform the strings into integers because the content of the string is handier to have in the output in running the analysis.

Thanks :)

Divakar · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-11 12:35:48Z

1

Code

strings={'s1' 's2' 's3'};
a=[1 2 3];
outputfile = 'output.txt';

%%// Code to horziontally concatenate to result in a Nx2 cell array
out = [num2cell(num2str(a,'%d')') strings']

%%// Write to outputfile - Method 1
out = out';
fid = fopen(outputfile,'w');
fprintf(fid, '%s\t%s\n', out{:});
fclose(fid);

%%// Write to outputfile - Method 2
%%// Create a text file and clear it out of any content. This is needed, as otherwise
%%// XLSREAD was initializing CSV files with weird characters
%% dlmwrite(outputfile,'');

%%// Write to CSV file using XLSREAD
%xlswrite(outputfile,out)

%%// Verify
type(outputfile)

Output

out = 

    '1'    's1'
    '2'    's2'
    '3'    's3'


1   s1
2   s2
3   s3

edited Mar 11, 2014 at 12:35

answered Mar 10, 2014 at 23:32

Divakar

222k19 gold badges273 silver badges374 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

6 Comments

Bastien Over a year ago

Ok THIS is pretty close but then when I use the following dlmwrite(fileName,T,'-append','delimiter','\t'); the string gets split in as many "columns" as there are tabs.

Divakar Over a year ago

Edited to your new requirements!

Bastien Over a year ago

Thanks for the reply. It's giving me every character separated by a comma sadly. I also get an error that it could not start Excel. This is turning out to be a headache of a task

Bastien Over a year ago

It would appear xlswrite is a PC only thing. Downloaded the "fix" for mac developed by third party but I will only save in xls which ultimately isn't really handy since this table has to go to R. Damn MATLAB!

Bastien Over a year ago

Great! Superb! Thanks so much for your help and patience!

|

Notlikethat · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-10 23:40:11Z

1

It's a little unclear what you want, but it would seem to be:

T = table(a(:), strings(:));

Assuming I'm reading the documentation for table correctly.

Or, for a cell array:

C = [num2cell(a(:)) strings(:)];

edited Mar 10, 2014 at 23:40

answered Mar 10, 2014 at 23:32

Notlikethat

21.2k3 gold badges44 silver badges81 bronze badges

3 Comments

Bastien Over a year ago

Thought this would be perfect but then because I'm using dlmwrite to write to a text file I get the following: Error using dlmwrite (line 118) The input cell array cannot be converted to a matrix.

Notlikethat Over a year ago

@Bastien I've never used it, but according to the docs dlmwrite only handles numeric data, not strings. If you have new enough Matlab or the stats toolbox, using tables and writetable looks like it might work. More ideas here.

Bastien Over a year ago

Sadly I don't have write table... I'm just a version under to have that sadface

Luis Mendo · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-10 23:42:50Z

1

If you want to obtain a char array:

    aux = num2str(a(:));
    aux = mat2cell(aux,ones(1,size(aux,1)),size(aux,2));
    T = cell2mat([aux strings(:)]);

The result is a 2D char array (leading spaces are introduced if needed):

edited Mar 10, 2014 at 23:42

answered Mar 10, 2014 at 23:09

Luis Mendo

113k13 gold badges80 silver badges154 bronze badges

5 Comments

Divakar Over a year ago

OP has mentioned - "T=[a(:) strings(:)]", so I think he needs a cell output.

Bastien Over a year ago

hey @Luis Thanks. It's not quite what I want. The ultimate table should consist of two columns one for a and one for strings

Luis Mendo Over a year ago

@Bastien So... do you want a 2D-cell array as the result?

Bastien Over a year ago

I guess a 2D-cell array could do yeah.

Bastien Over a year ago

although dlmwrite might not like it (see my comment to answer below)

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

getting a cell array of string into a matrix or table Matlab

3 Answers 3

6 Comments

3 Comments

5 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

6 Comments

3 Comments

5 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related