How to sort a cell array with respect to another cell array?
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Hello:
If I have cell array A:
cellA = {'A', 'B', 'C', 'D'; 1, 2, 3, 4; 5, 6, 7, 8; 9, 1, 2, 3}
and cell array B:
cellB = {'C', 'A', 'D'; 1, 2, 3; 4, 5, 6; 7, 8, 9}
Is there a way to sort cellB with respect to cellA (specifically the first row, but with the capability to look to other rows to tiebreak)? Such that the final cellB array looks something like this, including the null spaces:
cellBFinal = {'A' '' 'C' 'D'; 2 [] 1 3; 5 [] 4 6; 8 [] 7 9}
Thank you!
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Accepted Answer
Dyuman Joshi
on 27 Jun 2023
Here's one approach -
%Note that this approaches requires the 1st row of cellA to be sorted
cellA = {'A', 'B', 'C', 'D'; 1, 2, 3, 4; 5, 6, 7, 8; 9, 1, 2, 3};
cellB = {'C', 'A', 'D'; 1, 2, 3; 4, 5, 6; 7, 8, 9};
%positions of elements of row 1 from cellB which are common to elements of row 1 from cellA
[~,y]=ismember(cellA(1,:),cellB(1,:))
z = any(y==0);
if z
%Concatenate empty spaces according to the class of elements with cellB
%only there is a missing common element (in this case 'B')
cellB = [cellfun(@(x) x([]), cellB(:,1), 'uni', 0) cellB];
end
%Final output
cellC = cellB(:,y+z)
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More Answers (1)
Jon
on 27 Jun 2023
cellA = {'A', 'B', 'C', 'D'; 1, 2, 3, 4; 5, 6, 7, 8; 9, 1, 2, 3}
cellB = {'C', 'A', 'D'; 1, 2, 3; 4, 5, 6; 7, 8, 9}
[lia,lib] = ismember(cellA(1,:),cellB(1,:))
cellBFinal = cell(size(cellA,2),size(cellB,1))
cellBFinal(:,lia) = cellB(:,lib(lia))
2 Comments
Jon
on 27 Jun 2023
@Liam if it is important to you to have all the elements of the first row as char, then @Dyuman Joshi's somewhat more elaborate construction of the empty cell array will be needed. Otherwise can just initialize with all elements as empty doubles.
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