Matlab, Create one cell of some cells

Question

I have 3 cell arrays of some strings cell1, cell2 and cell3. I want to save them in one cell matrix.If the column size of each cell are col1 col2 and col3. I want to create one cell with size (max(col1,col2,col3)*3)).How can I?

cellmarix{:,1}=cell1;
cellmarix{:,2}=cell2;
cellmarix{:,3}=cell3;

but this created a cell of cells of size (1*3).

I also used

cellmatrix={cell1,cell2,cell3};

but the result was the same(1*3) cell of cells.

for example if I have

  cell1={
 'uzi'
 'julian'
 'ahyden'
 'kwayne'
 'riel'
 'gazook'
 'mustapha'
  }

cell2={
 'negro'
 'kris'
'sascha'
'jimw'
'andi'
'andrei'
 }

cell3={
'joncruz'
'youngsd'
'notzed'
'werner'
'cactus'
'Iain'
'faassen'
 }

The result is :

cell_all={
'uzi'        'negro'    'joncruz'
'julian'      'kris'    'youngsd'
'ahyden'      'sascha'  'notzed'
'kwayne'       jimw'    'werner'
'riel'        'andi'    'cactus'
'gazook'     'andrei'   'Iain'
'mustapha'      []      'faassen'
}

@Dan that would produce a cell of cells, apparently that's not what the OP wants. — Eitan T

Eitan T Eitan T · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-29T08:51:59

You can do the following:

cell_all = cell1;
cell_all(1:numel(cell2), 2) = cell2;
cell_all(1:numel(cell3), 3) = cell3;

If you have a lot of cells (like you say you do), you can resort to a loop:

n = 3; %// Number of columns
cell_all = cell1;
for k = 2:n
    varname = sprintf('cell%d', k);
    cell_all(1:numel(eval(varname)), 2) = eval(varname);
end

This is one of those rare cases where eval actually helps. However, I cannot help but wonder why there are so many cell variables in your workspace instead of populating one large cell array right from the start.

Matlab, Create one cell of some cells

2 Answers