MATLAB export cell array to csv file

Hi all,

I wish to write a some information in form of a csv file from a matlab code.

In the MATLAB code I have stored the header as a cell array:

ToCSV={'Location' 'Weight_factor' 'Average' 'Maximum' 'Minimum'};

I append rows to this cell array by looping. A sample statement is:

ToCSV={ToCSV; {'EastLocation' 0.5 1e+3 1e+4 1e+2} };

I wish to print this as a csv file. I used following routine which sort of giving errors:

fid = fopen('outfile.csv','w');
fprintf(fid,'%s, %s, %s, %s, %s\n',ToCSV{1,:});
fprintf(fid,'%s, %f, %10.2e, %10.2e, %f\n',ToCSV{2:end,:});
fclose(fid);

>>Error using fprintf
>>Function is not defined for 'cell' inputs.

Can some of you please provide pointers to achieve this ? I also tried csvwrite but apparently it doesn't go well with cell arrays.

Thanks a lot !!!

Answer 1

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

you should concatenate like this

   ToCSV=[ToCSV; {'EastLocation' 0.5 1e+3 1e+4 1e+2} ];

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

Change

ToCSV={ToCSV; {'EastLocation' 0.5 1e+3 1e+4 1e+2} };

to

ToCSV=[ToCSV; {'EastLocation' 0.5 1e+3 1e+4 1e+2} ];

[Rahul Pandey]

Yeah both you folks are right and thanks for help. Yet I am facing some problem as I am populating my location entry through a regexp search:

Location=regexp(all_files(i).name,expression,'match'); This entry is filled into 1st column of ToCSV cell array.

My final ToCSV is like:

>> ToCSV

ToCSV = 

      'Location'    'Weight_factor'    'Average'       'Maximum'     'Minimum' 
      {1x1 cell}    [       0.0500]    [9.7449e-07]    [986.7844]    [ 87.6252]
      {1x1 cell}    [       0.5000]    [8.6915e-06]    [507.5409]    [107.7545]

....

So when I run the same code I get:

>>Error using fprintf
>>Function is not defined for 'cell' inputs.

I tried to use cell2mat during concatenation:

ToCSV=[ToCSV; {cell2mat(Location) 0.5 1e+3 1e+4 1e+2} ];

The code then went fine as I got following content of ToCSV:

ToCSV = 

      'Location'    'Weight_factor'    'Average'       'Maximum'       'Minimum' 
      'A1'          [       0.0500]    [3.0933e-06]    [  847.4803]    [ 94.7178]
      'A1'          [       0.5000]    [2.8002e-05]    [  740.9295]    [109.7109]
      'A2'          [       0.5000]    [2.7834e-05]    [1.5684e+03]    [ 89.2992]
      'A2'          [       0.0500]    [3.0045e-06]    [2.9597e+03]    [ 77.9242]
      'A3'          [       0.0500]    [9.7449e-07]    [  986.7844]    [ 87.6252]
      'A3'          [       0.5000]    [8.6915e-06]    [  507.5409]    [107.7545]

But the fprint command kind of messed the order of elements in csv file and I didn't get the same tabular format of ToCSV (shown above)

Contents of csv file:

Location   Weight_factor   Average   Maximum   Minimum
A1  65  4.90E+01  6.50E+01  50
A2  65  5.10E+01  6.50E+01  51
5.00E-02  0.5  5.00E-01  5.00E-02  0.05
5.00E-01  0.000003  2.80E-05  2.78E-05  0.000003
9.74E-07  0.000009  8.47E+02  7.41E+02  1568.418126
2.96E+03  986.784402  5.08E+02  9.47E+01  109.710851
8.93E+01  77.924157  8.76E+01  1.08E+02   

 Need some more help from you folks to identify the bug here.
Thanks a lot !!!

[Walter Roberson]

What do you want to appear in the first column in the csv file?

If you want the cell array of strings to appear, separated by spaces, then

str_to_store = sprintf('%s ', ToCSV{row,1});

You can automate this with something like

FirstCol = cellfun( @(C) sprintf('%s ', C{:}), ToCSV(:,1), 'Uniform', 0);

[Rahul Pandey]

Got it !! Thanks !