How to convert all the cell in a columns from char to string

I have a table that contains char columns and double columns. I want to keep the same format but convert all the char into string to do some operation after.

'ABc' 'XYZ'

To : "ABC" "XYZ"

Answer 1

[Guillaume]

Hum! it's not actually that easy as you can't use the syntax yourtable(:, somecolumns) to change the type of the column from cell array to string.

Option 1: use . indexing over the char columns

for columnname = yourcharcolumnnames  %where yourcharcolumnnames is a cell array of the char column names
   yourtable.(columnname{1}) = string(yourtable.(columnname{1}));
end

Option 2: create an auxiliary function for varfun that can take any column type

function column = convertcolumn(column)
   if iscell(column) && ~isempty(column) && ischar(column)
      column = string(column);
   end
end

which you use with varfun:

newtable = varfun(@convertcolumn, yourtable);

[Marie-Claude Boisvert]

Option1 Work,:) I will specified my columns and its good :D Thanks a lot

Option2 run but the columns are still char

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

This will do it:

% Set up
c = {'ABc'; 'XYZ'}
d = rand(2,1)
t = table(c, d, 'VariableNames', {'letters', 'numbers'})

% Now begin.  
% First extract existing letters column of chars into a cell array.
cColumn = t{:, 'letters'}
% Convert char column to strings.
sColumn = string(cColumn)
% Make that into a table of strings with the same variable name, "strings"
st = table(sColumn, 'VariableNames', {'letters'})
% Delete existing char column.
t(:, 'letters') = []
% Add this column to the table in the same place as the char column was.
t = [st, t]