MATLAB: finding index of an element in a multidimensional cell array with mixed data types

Question

Like the title says. How do I find the index of a specific element in a matlab cell array? The content of the cell array contains both strings and numbers.

Toy example:

database = cell(4,2)
database(1,1:2) = {'Song', 'Rating'}
database(2:4,1) = {'Song1'; 'Song2'; 'Song3'}
database(2:4,2) = {1; 2; 5}

functionIWant(database, 'Song2') % Should return [3,1] or something similar

I know I can convert it to a matrix, iterate over it and thereby find the right index. I'm wondering however if there is any faster method working directly on cell arrays.

+1 for including toy example. All questions should do that

Luis Mendo
– Luis Mendo

2014-06-02 16:52:07 +00:00
Commented Jun 2, 2014 at 16:52 — Luis Mendo
– Luis Mendo, Commented Jun 2, 2014 at 16:52

Divakar · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-02 16:33:07Z

3

Try this -

[r,c] = find(strcmp(database,'Song2'))

Output -

answered Jun 2, 2014 at 16:33

Divakar

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2 Comments

Cape Code Over a year ago

Oh, strcmp works directly on cell arrays? Convenient.

Divakar Over a year ago

@Jigg Exactly! Easier this way I guess :)

Cape Code · Accepted Answer · 2014-06-02 16:38:18Z

1

You can try something like that:

str='Song2';
Match=cellfun(@(x) strcmp(str, x), database, 'UniformOutput', 0);

And get the index of the match:

[row, col]=find(cell2mat(Match))

If you want the matching element of column 2, just do:

database(row, 2)

edited Jun 2, 2014 at 16:38

answered Jun 2, 2014 at 16:30

Cape Code

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