cell matching

hi,

 i have a code like this:  
  b = {'i'; 'need'; 'five'; 'rats'};
c = {'rats'; 'eat'; 'cheese'};
b{10} = [];
c{10} = [];

how do we match cell c with cell b?? i've tried using ismember but return error 'input must be array of string'

thank you,

---Maya----

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

ismember(c,b)

However that will not work if your version of MATLAB is sufficiently old. Which version are you using?

[Fangjun Jiang]

Will you be able to run ismember(c,b) if both b and c contains empty elements, like after the OP's b{10}=[] and c{10} = [] statement?

[Rusmaya Luthfina]

i'm using R2010

[Walter Roberson]

Good question, I missed that. In that case,

ismember(c(~cellfun(@isempty,c)),b(~cellfun(@isempty,b)))

[Jan]

@Walter: cellfun('isempty') is remarkably faster than cellfun(@isempty).

Answer 2

[Fangjun Jiang]

Not sure why do you need to have the b{10}=[] and c{10} = [] statement. If it's allowed, you can set those elements to be empty string, and then run ismember().

b = {'i'; 'need'; 'five'; 'rats'};
c = {'rats'; 'eat'; 'cheese'};
b(end+1:10) = {''};
c(end+1:10) = {''};

ismember(b,c)

[Rusmaya Luthfina]

actually, i'm programming document retrieval using vector space model, which between database and query must have same dimension.. :(

Answer 3

[Rusmaya Luthfina]

i've been able to solve my problems.. :D thx u 4 your help!

---Maya--