Tables: Create new variables by modifying existing ones

Dear All,

I have a table and I would like to create new variables (columns) by modfying existing ones. I have seen examples where poeple apply functions, but these were typically restricted to numerical operations. Supoose I have the following table:

 A     B      C 
obs1  te:st   X
obs2  test    Y

I would like to create

 A     B       C     D 
obs1  te:st    X   testX
obs2  test     Y   testY

So:

1. Drop special characters (":")
2. Append two string columns.

Can anyone help me out?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

[Guillaume]

Use regexprep to replace patterns (with empty strings in your case), and strcat to concatenate cell arrays of strings:

t = cell2table({'obs1', 'te:st', 'X'; 'obs2', 'test', 'Y'}, 'VariableNames', {'A', 'B', 'C'})
t.D = strcat(regexprep(t.B, '\W', ''), test.C)

The regular expresion I've used will drop any character other than [a-ZA-Z0-9_]

[roblocks]

perfect, thanks!