How to find a particular string in a stuct which has multiple fields?

I want to search and get the index of the string 'mnop' in the stuct MyStruct which has two fields abc and def. Please refer to the attachment to know how the struct looks. Currently string 'mnop' exists in second row of the field MyStruct.abc.I tried using strfind, strcmp and ismember. I know i'm missing a trick somewhere. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[madhan ravi]

Upload the file by clicking the paper clip button.

[Kish1794]

Hi ravi, That's how i've uploaded the screenshot.

[madhan ravi]

I mean the strict file so that it can be tested?

[Kish1794]

Uploaded

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

Why not something simple like this?:

>> S = load('MyStruct.mat');
>> MyS = S.MyStruct;
>> strcmp({MyS.abc},'mnop')
ans =
  0  1  0  0
>> strcmp({MyS.def},'mnop')
ans =
  0  0  0  0

This clearly identifies that the char vector 'mnop' exists in the second cell of the field abc. You can easily put this code into a loop, and loop over all of the fieldnames:

C = fieldnames(MyS);
for k = 1:numel(C)
    strcmp({MyS.(C{k})},'mnop')
end

and within the loop use whatever logic that you require.

[Kish1794]

thank you. It is simpler.

Answer 2

[Robert U]

Hi Kish1794,

you can write a function that utilizes strfind on the structure array:

main.m

%%Create TestData
abc = {'jkl','mnop','zxcv','hgfsf'};
def = {'def','tre','asd','qwerty'};

for ik = 1:numel(abc)
    sIn(ik).abc = abc{ik};
    sIn(ik).def = def{ik};
end

%%Call Function
[nField,nStruct] = getFieldValue(sIn,'mnop');

%%Check result
cFields = fieldnames(sIn);
Output = sIn(nStruct{1}).(cFields{nField{1}});

getFieldValue.m

    function [ nField, nStruct ] = getFieldValue( sIn, strFind )

      cFieldName = fieldnames(sIn);

      nField = {};
      nStruct = {};

      for ik = 1:numel(cFieldName)
          testVec = ~cellfun(@isempty,strfind({sIn.(cFieldName{ik})},strFind));
          if any(testVec)
              nField{end+1} = ik;
              nStruct{end+1} = find(testVec);
          end
      end

end

[Kish1794]

Hi Robert U, Thanks for the reply. I wanted to know the index of the sIn where the 'mnop' exists. Does your code tell me that? So nStruct is the index?

[Robert U]

That's exactly what it returns. You get a clear index of the string to find comprising index of structure array and index of cell.

You can even handle strings that occur several times over your structure and it does not matter what name you chose for field names.

[Kish1794]

Thanks Robert U.