converting cells with strings inside cells into strings inside cells

I use the following code: cellfun(@(x) regexp(x, '@(.*)@', 'tokens'), array_of_strings) The idea is to replace all the strings in the array with only the substring between the @'s. It works, the only problem is that the 'tokens' option leaves me with cells inside cells, which is inconvenient. My questions are: 1. Is there an alternative way to do it without getting cells inside cells? 2. It is interesting for me to know if there is a function that converts "cell arrays with strings inside a cell array" into simply "strings in a cell array". Thanks

[Paolo]

Can you show a sample of array_of_strings?

[Micha]

array_of_strings = {'a @one@', 'a @two@', 'a@three@'};

Answer 1

[Paolo]

 cellfun(@(x) regexp(x,'(?<=@)(.*)(?=@)','match'),array_of_strings)

Or

 cellfun(@(x) regexp(x,'(?<=@)(.*)(?=@)','tokens','once'),array_of_strings)

[Micha]

This is a nice solution. Thank you.

Also I would be happy to know if there is an answer for question 2.

[Paolo]

You are welcome. Not sure I follow the second question, do you mean going from:

 nested = {{'one','two'}}

To

 unnested = nested{:}

?

[Micha]

I'm sorry, now I realized my original code didn't reproduce what I meant for question 2.

The cellfun was supposed to be with UniformOutput set to false:

array_of_strings = {'a @one@', 'a zero', 'a @two@', 'a @three@'};

% now we have to set it to false because one cell is going to become empty.

new_array = cellfun(@(x) regexp(x, '@(.*)@', 'tokens'), array_of_strings, 'UniformOutput', false);

% remove the empty cells

new_array = new_array(~cellfun('isempty', new_array))

What I get now is: 1×3 cell array

    {1×1 cell}    {1×1 cell}    {1×1 cell}

Now I don't want these to be cells inside a cell array, but rather just strings as before.

[Micha]

Of course, your 2 solutions solved this problem to begin with. But I was interested if there is any function to "fix" this new condition.

[Paolo]

 >>horzcat(new_array{:})

 {'one'} {'two'} {'three'}

Does this help?

[Micha]

That seems to do the trick

Thanks!