Indexing a cell array with variable number of dimensions with a vector

Question

In MATLAB, have an N-dimensional cell C, where N is an integer only determined at runtime. How do I access a specific element of C with a vector variable id? For example, with N=3 and id=[1,5,2], how to programmatically get the content of c{1,5,2}? I cannot hard-code it as c{id(1),id(2),id(3)} since N is only fixed at runtime.

@thewaywewalk no, c{id} returns c{id(1)}, c{id(2)},..., c{(id(N))} — egwene sedai
– egwene sedai, Commented Jan 11, 2016 at 9:44
@thewaywewalk ...but very different from c{id(1),id(2),id(3)} — Dan
– Dan, Commented Jan 11, 2016 at 10:56
@Dan ... which for the input I Imagined is not working at all, the same stands for your answer. For me the question is totally unclear. But your mentalist skills seemed good enough and the OP is satisfied. So why not... — Robert Seifert
– Robert Seifert, Commented Jan 11, 2016 at 11:02

Dan · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-11 09:52:09Z

2

If id is a cell array, then you can use sub2ind for this by taking advantage of the comma separated list syntax ,i.e. {:}, to send a variable number of inputs to sub2ind

id = {1,5,2};
ind = sub2ind(size(C), id{:})
c{ind}

if id isn't a cell array (and for some reason can't be created as one), then use num2cell to convert it.

edited Jan 11, 2016 at 9:52

answered Jan 11, 2016 at 9:47

Dan

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