how to determine the number of spesific string in cell?

i have a data cell contain x={'ab','cd','cd','ab','ab','ef'}; if we see in the data, its contain three 'ab' String, two 'cd' string, and one 'ef' string. how can i determine it in matlab code? i am new in matlab, thank you very much..

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

One approach:

x={'ab','cd','cd','ab','ab','ef'};
[Ux, ~, ic] = unique(x);
[Cts] = histc(ic, [1:length(Ux)]);
out = {Ux', Cts};
for k1 = 1:length(Cts)
    fprintf('\t%s = %d\n', char(out{1}(k1)), out{2}(k1))
end

produces:

  ab = 3
  cd = 2
  ef = 1

Experiment to get the result you want.

Answer 2

[Geoff Hayes]

Rusian - you could first sort the contents of the cell array so that all identical elements follow each other

 x  = {'ab','cd','cd','ab','ab','ef'};
 sX = sort(x);

where sX is

 sX = 

    'ab'    'ab'    'ab'    'cd'    'cd'    'ef'

You could then iterate over each element comparing it with the previous one. If there is a difference, then you know that you have encountered all those of the previous strings and can just write out their count. Something like

 distinctStrings = {};
 atString        = 1;
 count           = 1;
 for k=2:length(sX)
     if strcmp(sX{k},sX{k-1}) == 1
         % the two strings are identical so increment the count
         count = count + 1;
     else
         % the two strings are not identical so update distinctStrings
         % and reset the counter
         distinctStrings{atString,1} = sX{k-1};
         distinctStrings{atString,2} = count;
         count    = 1;
         atString = atString + 1;
     end

     if k==length(sX)
         % on the last element so insert it into array
         distinctStrings{atString,1} = sX{k};
         distinctStrings{atString,2} = count;
     end
 end

where distinctStrings is

 distinctStrings = 

    'ab'    [3]
    'cd'    [2]
    'ef'    [1]

Try the above and see what happens!