Is there a function for finding the specific column number in a cell array?

Helle everyone,

I think question is clear but, this is Matlab at all, I have a nx1 cell array and I want to know which column contains "WantedName" word. So firstly I have written a script to do this, but it takes so much time at debugging, because there are so many columns. I think there should be a function to do that like findcolumn(A, 'x'). my script that works fine for me;

names = fieldnames(EXC);
Snames = strfind(names, 'WantedName')
for k = 1:numel(Snames)
  if Snames{k} == 1;
       n = k
  end
end

Fieldnames and 'WantedName'(s) are not corresponding word by word everytime, so I need to use strfind to find if 'WantedName' exists in a fieldname of EXC(struct). so strfind gives me cell array of names but place "1" for the column that have 'WantedName' in it. and then I need to do numel(names) times of for loop to find which column it is that having "1".

There should be a function to do that?? It is not the end of the world, script works well right now but I am curious.

Answer 1

[KSSV]

Refer this link: https://in.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/2015-find-index-of-cells-containing-my-string

[Burak Bayram]

Oh, thanks that's it!

I already tried isempty and cellfun but I never thought of using "not". sometimes the answer is really simple :)

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

[tf, idx] = ismember('WantedName', names);

Then, if tf is true then names{idx} is 'WantedName'.

You hint that you might have several wanted names. If so then

[tf, idx] = ismember(WantedNames, names);

where WantedNames is a cell array of strings to look for in names. tf(K) tells you if WantedNames{K} was found, and if it was found then idx(K) is the position in names.

[Burak Bayram]

Thank you for your answer Walter,

but it is not working, because ismember will return true answers if only I want to find "exact" 'WantedName'.

For example, I want to find the column that contains words; 'abcd', and it exists on a nth column named 'abcd_x' for instance. ismember would work with only ;

ismember('abcd_x', names)
tf = 1 , idx = n
--
ismember('abcd', names)
tf = 0, idx = 0

it would give these results, but I want to find this 'abcd_x' named, nth column with 'abcd' because I only have that, I don't have 'abcd_x'.

[Walter Roberson]

If you have R2016b or later,

tf = startsWith(names, WantedNames)

This will return a logical array the same size as names (assuming it is a string array or cell array of character vectors) that tells you which of the entries start with something (anything) in Wantednames (which can be a character vector or string array or cell array of character vectors.)

[Burak Bayram]

Unfortunately I use r2012b, but @KSSV's link worked just fine for me, thank you for your time Walter!