How to Save a raw array and delete NaN in a raw array

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I am using xlsread to get data from .csv files. I need all of the information from these files, so the [raw] = xlsread(thisfile), it what I need to use. However, how would I go about saving this array as a .mat file and replacing any NaN values with empty cells?
I need to use the raw data, unless somebody else knows a way to get all text/numerical data into the array. I tried using textscan, but it was far to complicated.

Accepted Answer

TastyPastry
TastyPastry on 8 Oct 2015
arr(cellfun(@(x) any(isnan(x)),arr)) = {[]};
Where arr is your input array.
  3 Comments
TastyPastry
TastyPastry on 8 Oct 2015
As Stephen said, you can't have an "empty" cell in a cell array. What you replace NaN with depends on what you're trying to do with the data. I think the empty vector is probably your best bet, since if you're trying to index out whatever cells are "empty", you could use isempty to find the empty cells.

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More Answers (1)

Stephen23
Stephen23 on 8 Oct 2015
Edited: Stephen23 on 8 Oct 2015
In MATLAB there is no such thing as an empty cell. Every cell contains something, even if it just an empty array. Initializing a cell array using cell places empty arrays in each cell. You could:
  • replace the contents of those cells with empty arrays.
  • delete those cells.
  • keep an index of which cells to ignore.
Whatevery way you create a cell array, the cells always contain another array:
>> X = cell(1,3)
X =
[] [] []
>> X{3}
ans =
[]
>> size(X{3})
ans =
0 0
>> Y{3} = []
Y =
[] [] []
  2 Comments
Ibro Tutic
Ibro Tutic on 8 Oct 2015
So there is no way to replace the NaN's with empty cells? Is there a way I could combine the number and text arrays and use that?
Stephen23
Stephen23 on 8 Oct 2015
Edited: Stephen23 on 8 Oct 2015
I think the neatest and most robust solution would be to not change your cell contents at all and simply create a separate vector/array of indices that lets you keep track of those cells. This follows the programming best practice of minimizing changes to raw data.

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