How to find same elements in a cell array?

Hello all,

I have the following question:

I need to find the same elements and how many times they are repeated in a cell array. The elements are vectors of integers (e.g, [1,3,4,5]). Then, I'd like to find the repeated sequences and the count of their repetitions.

For example, suppose that the cell array (C) is composed as follows:

[1,2,4,5] [1,4,2,5] [1,2,4,5] [4,1,5,2] [1,2,4,5] [1,4,2,5]

Is there any smart solution to get the sequences [1,2,4,5] and [1,4,2,5], and their repetitions (3 and 2, respectively)?

Thanks in advance,

Ale

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

You mean [1,2,4,5] and [1,4,2,5], and their repetitions (3 and 2, respectively)

[Alessandro Cristini]

Yes, sorry!

Answer 1

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

a={[1,2,4,5] [1,4,2,5] [1,2,4,5] [4,1,5,2] [1,2,4,5] [1,4,2,5]}
b=cell2mat(a')
[ii,jj,kk]=unique(b,'rows')
out=[ii accumarray(kk,1)]

The last column of out is the frequency

[Alessandro Cristini]

Thanks a lot! It is just what I wanted to do!!

But, in the case of one (or more) element is empty or doesn't agree with the size of the other one, this method doesn't work..

For example, suppose that the cell array "a" is composed as follows:

a={[1 2][1,2,4,5] [1,4,2,5] [1,2,4,5] [4,1,5,2] [1,2,4,5] [1,4,2,5][ ]}

In this case, how can I solve the above problem?

Thanks.

Answer 2

[Andrei Bobrov]

a = {[1,2,4,5] [1,4,2,5] [1,2,4,5] [4,1,5,2,1] [1,2,4,5] [1,4, 2,5]};
a = a(:);
[a1,b,c] = unique(cellfun(@char,a,'un',0));
lo = histc(c,1:max(c));
loo = lo(:) > 1;
out = [a(b(loo)), num2cell(lo(loo))];

[Alessandro Cristini]

I hadn't read this answer that solve my second question. Thanks for the help!