Loading in a table that has multiple values in a single cell seperated by a comma

Does matlab have an issue when you load in data from a csv file and multiple cells in your file contain more than one value which are seperated by a comma? I am trying to match to columns together from two different csv files that have the same data type but I am getting the issue of "

Error using tabular/ismember

A and B must contain the same variables.'

Is this because some of my cells in one of my csv contain multiple values and matlab is not able to recognize each one of them?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

You are trying to use ismember() to compare two tables directly. ismember() only permits that if all of the same variables occur in each table

Perhaps join would be appropriate for your purpose?

[User]

How would I use the join function for this sample data set where I want to use example 2 xlsx and compare it to column 2 of example 1 file. If there is a match I would like it to read its respective value in column 1. Do i have to create a for loop to do this for each sample?

[Walter Roberson]

Do not ismember entire tables -- select variables from the table.

filename1 = 'example1.xlsx';
filename2 = 'example2.xlsx';
T1 = readtable(filename1, 'VariableNamingRule', 'preserve');
T2 = readtable(filename2, 'VariableNamingRule', 'preserve');

[found, idx] = ismember(T2.('last name'), T1.('last name'));
T1.('first name')(idx(found))

ans = 1×1 cell array
    {'ben'}

innerjoin(T1, T2)

ans = 1×2 table
    first name    last name
    __________    _________

     {'ben'}      {'smith'}