Convert cell array with different datatypes to numeric

Hi everybody,

I am dealing with a cell array, where single numbers are saved as strings in the cells and some cells are empty. So cell2mat does not work. I want to convert the vector to double while keeping the numbers and replacing the empty cells with NaN.

What would be the fastest way to do this?

Best

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

As you only have "single numbers" in the cells, then you can use str2double directly on the cell array:

>> A = {'123',[],'4','5678',[],'90'};
>> str2double(A)
ans = [123,NaN,4,5678,NaN,90]

The documentation states: "If str does not represent a valid scalar value, str2double returns NaN."

[Christian F.]

Thanks, I get the following error using str2num:

Error using str2num (line 32) Requires string or character array input.

However, I dont know why...

[Stephen23]

My answer uses str2double, not str2num.

[Christian F.]

thanks, it works