PADCAT

concatenate vectors with different lengths by padding with NaN
14.9K Downloads
Updated 5 Dec 2018

View License

Editor's Note: This file was selected as MATLAB Central Pick of the Week

PADCAT - concatenate vectors with different lengths by padding with NaN

M = PADCAT(V1, V2, V3, ..., VN) concatenates the vectors V1 through VN
into one large matrix. All vectors should have the same orientation,
that is, they are all row or column vectors. The vectors do not need to
have the same lengths, and shorter vectors are padded with NaNs.
The size of M is determined by the length of the longest vector. For
row vectors, M will be a N-by-MaxL matrix and for column vectors, M
will be a MaxL-by-N matrix, where MaxL is the length of the longest
vector.

Examples:
a = 1:5 ; b = 1:3 ; c = [] ; d = 1:4 ;
padcat(a,b,c,d) % row vectors
% -> 1 2 3 4 5
% 1 2 3 NaN NaN
% NaN NaN NaN NaN NaN
% 1 2 3 4 NaN
CC = {d.' a.' c.' b.' d.'} ;
padcat(CC{:}) % column vectors
% 1 1 NaN 1 1
% 2 2 NaN 2 2
% 3 3 NaN 3 3
% 4 4 NaN NaN 4
% NaN 5 NaN NaN NaN


[M, TF] = PADCAT(..) will also return a logical matrix TF with the same
size as R having true values for those positions that originate from an
input vector. This may be useful if any of the vectors contain NaNs.

Example:
a = 1:3 ; b = [] ; c = [1 NaN] ;
[M,tf] = padcat(a,b,c)
% find the original NaN
[Vev,Pos] = find(tf & isnan(M))
% -> Vec = 3 , Pos = 2
This second output can also be used to change the padding value into something else than NaN.
[M, tf] = padcat(1:3,1,1:4)
M(~tf) = 99 % change the padding value into 99

Scalars will be concatenated into a single column vector.

See also cat, reshape, strvcat, char, horzcat, vertcat, isempty
nones, group2cell (Matlab File Exchange)

Cite As

Jos (10584) (2024). PADCAT (https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/22909-padcat), MATLAB Central File Exchange. Retrieved .

MATLAB Release Compatibility
Created with R2018a
Compatible with any release
Platform Compatibility
Windows macOS Linux
Categories
Find more on Linear Algebra in Help Center and MATLAB Answers
Acknowledgements

Inspired by: padadd

Inspired: CATALIGN, CATX, CATPAD

Community Treasure Hunt

Find the treasures in MATLAB Central and discover how the community can help you!

Start Hunting!
Version Published Release Notes
1.4.0.0

removed some irrelevant code warnings

1.3.0.0

updated description
updated contact info, and update argument checking

1.1.0.0

added help on how to change the padding value using the secondary output

1.0.0.0