how to change a cell in a string to a string in a table

Hey everyone, I'm trying to use the 'unique' matlab function.

unique(table.row)

When I try this I get the error "Cell array input must be a cell array of character vectors.". I think this is because my table is in the form

table.row(1) = {'string'}

But it needs to be in the form

table.row(1) = 'string'.

I tried to fix this by using the for loop below

for n= 1:numel(table.row)
    table.row(n)=table.row{n};
end

but doing this I get the output error "Conversion to cell from char is not possible."

[Jon]

I understand that you are having a problem using the MATLAB unique function and you get the error message "Cell array input must be a cell array of character vectors" but I don't know what variable (argument) you are passing to the unique function. I see it has something to do with data that is in a table but it is not clear to me what is in your table or what you are passing to the unique function. Can you please be more specific. Best if you could please make a small, self contained example (very short script) that demonstrates the problem.

[tiwwexx]

Jon, I changed up the wording of the question so it has a more concrete example of the problem. Does this help clairify?

Answer 1

[Adam Danz]

% This reproduces your error
T = table(num2cell(string(['a':'z']')),'VariableNames',{'row'});
unique(T.row) % ERROR!

% Convert from cellarray of strings vectors to string array
T = table(num2cell(string(['a':'z']')),'VariableNames',{'row'});
T.row = [T.row{:}]';  % *
unique(T.row)  %class: string

% Do that twice to convert to characters
T = table(num2cell(string(['a':'z']')),'VariableNames',{'row'});
T.row = [T.row{:}]';  % *
T.row = [T.row{:}]';  % *
% Alternative: T.row = convertStringsToChars(T.row); % r2017b **
unique(T.row)  %class: char

Notes

* if there is a missing value in T.row, this will break.

** Will not break if there are missing values in T.row

[tiwwexx]

Perfect! Just needed the convertStringsToChars / convertCharstoStrings. Thanks for the help.

[Adam Danz]

Nice! Thanks for the feedback!