algebra in degree minutes seconds

The format of the variable 'a' are in degrees minutes but written as for example a= '4534.7899', where 45 is degrees and 34.7899 is minutes.

The vector cell 'c' is populated by data format such 'a' c= {a1; a2; a3}. 'c' is attached at lat How can I subtract a constant, angle 'a' from each cell in 'c' and obtain a column of cells 'd' which in seconds?

[Mukul Rao]

I do think I understand the format completely. How would this format represent say 45 degrees 34 minutes and 4.55 seconds?

[AbelM Kusemererwa]

he attached is a degree minutes vector cell in the format 5257.1172944 where deg=52 and min=57.1172944 a=5257.1172000 , 'a' is a single input angle of the same format as the attached file.

I want to subtract a from each cell in the vector cells attached and multiple the difference by 60 to obtain an answer in seconds

Answer 1

[Mukul Rao]

You can make use of either the "arrayfun" or the "cellfun" to perform elementwise operations. Here are the links for these functions:

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

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

The commands would look like,

        a = 5257.1172000;
        load lat
        %Convert entries in lat_cell to a number with "str2num"
        output = cellfun(@(cellin) (str2num(cellin) - a)*60,lat_cell);

The variable "output" is a double array that contains the required differences.