How can I compare an input value to coefficients in a cell array?

Hello all,

I am probably trying to do the easiest thing ever, but I'm unsure of how to do it. I have a list of coefficients in a cell array and I want to find out if any of those coefficients are greater than the value which I put in. If any values are larger I want to be able to see the position (number of the coefficient) as well as the value of the coefficient itself. Any help would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

a={10 30 50 0 20 60 70 80};
idx=find(cellfun(@(x) x>20,a))
values=a(idx)

%or

idx=find(cell2mat(a)>20)
values=a(idx)

Answer 2

[David (degtusmc)]

As it was suggested, convert the content of the cell to a matrix (cell2mat) and then perform comparisons. You could also convert from matrix to string (mat2str) and then use something like strcmp to make the comparison. Below are the links to the function documentation. I hope this helps.

http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/cell2mat.html

http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/mat2str.html

http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/strcmp.html

[Adam]

Thanks! This helped a great deal. Is it possible to obtain the index value next to the actual coefficient value? I basically need to see the position of each coefficient.

[David (degtusmc)]

There is a couple of ways you could do this. Two that I can think of, is using a function such as cellfun (as mentioned above) or a loop to find an extract what you are looking for.

I found a question that is very similar to what you are trying to accomplish. Take a look at it and see if it helps. The link is below:

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/2015

This other forum may also have useful things as well...

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13525657/finding-the-index-of-a-specific-value-in-a-cell-in-matlab