How to compare two different cell arrays ?

I would like to know if there is any way by which I can compare all the elements and remove the matched elements if not needed.

eg : a = the, he, hate
     b = he, hate
so c should be equal to the.

PS: I have tried string comparision method but, unfortunately they eliminate the 'he' from 'the' thus giving the output as only 't'.

Thank you, vish

[Igor Fedorov]

Have you tried the function setdiff()?

Answer 1

[Kenneth Eaton]

The SETDIFF function does what you want. It will give you the values in one set (i.e. cell array) that are not present in another set:

>> a = {'the', 'he', 'hate'};
>> b = {'he', 'hate'};
>> c = setdiff(a,b)

c = 

      'the'

[pradeep kumar]

I want to get the common elements as my result. I want,

c = {'he', 'hate'}

Please help.

[Walter Roberson]

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/intersect.html

c = intersect(a, b)

[Shubham Manglam]

thanks a lot Kenneth Eaton , it did save me pain of implementing two for loops and comparing elements one by one.

[Elvira Cordova]

Suppose I have the following:

a = { 'the', 'he', 'hate'}
b = { 'he', 'hate', 'she' }

And I want to obtain something like the following:

c = 'the' 
d = 'she'

Is it possible with

 setdiff

?

[Walter Roberson]

c = setdiff(a,b);
d = setdiff(b,a);

Answer 2

[Oleg Komarov]

a = {'the', 'he', 'hate'};
b = {'he', 'hate'};

ismember(a,b)

Oleg

Answer 3

[Remus]

What if I have two cell arrays with each array element continuing some structure with a combination of real elements and strings. i.e. A = {struct1,struct2,...} B = {struct1,struct2,...} here each struct can be of the type : structX.member1= ... (string/number) structX.member2= ... (string/number) ... Is there a way to compare the two cel arrays. dismember or setdiff only looks for strings so it won't work. Thanks Remus

[Walter Roberson]

isequal() if you just want to compare the overall cells for equality.

Is the question about treating the cells as sets of non-trivial "objects" and finding the objects that match between the sets?

[JLK93]

Walter, I would find this code useful if you can help?

[fan feng]

Have you found the Function, either built-in or used-defined, for two cell arrays containing non-string element?

[tannaz akbarpour]

I have the same problem as yours now. and have to compare two cells of values. Do you have any idea? or any piece of code?

[Walter Roberson]

isequal() if you just want to compare the overall cells for equality. If that is not what you want, then please explain further what you want the output to be. And remember you can use

cellfun(@isequal, FirstCellArray, SecondCellArray)

if you want a cell-by-cell response of whether the entries are exactly equal.

[chocho]

what if i have 2 cells: first cell of size 628*1 and the second cell 244*1 as follow:

cell1{k,1}={'tcaa-a6-2677';'tcca-a6-2681';'tcca-aa-3566';........};

cell2{k,1}={'TCCA-A6-2671-11A-01R-1758-07';'TCGA-A6-2677-11A-01R-0826-07';'TCGA-AA-3520-11A-01R-0721-07'; 'TCGA-AA-3566-11A-01R-1758-07';......}

*i tried to separate them by regexp'-' and compare between them and keep only the matched onces in cell1 otherwise delete , but i failed *

[Stephen23]

@chocho phD: Use cellfun and strncmpi. Easy.

If you asked this as a question I would show you how.

[chocho]

ok i posted it as a question, could i have an answer? i want to return only the matched onces and delete others []

[Stephen23]

See https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/328879-how-to-compare-2-or-more-cell-arrays

[chocho]

Stephen Cobeldick thanks bro,but in my case i have a cell array inside another cell array i.e cell 1 627*1 (row=627 and col=1) and inside each row (from 1 to 627 ) i have 1*3 cell! .