regexp usage for cellArray data which includes both characters and numbers.

cellArray=cellstr(cellArray)

cellArray =

    'O2930202    465254.432       4066809.025'

    'O2910008    499252.083        4042876.84'

    'O2920014    494404.625       4047958.526'

Name Size Bytes Class Attributes

 cellArray      22x1              4236  cell

%when I want to extract first column of the cellArray, I use

out1 = regexp(cellArray,'(?<=^\s*)\d*','match')

 out1 = cat(1,out1{:})

 out1 = sprintf('%s\n', out1{:})

%but it doesn't work because there are characters with numbers. It only works if only numbers are exist.

%what kind of code I need to write for extracting first column in terms of both characters and numbers.

Answer 1

[Andrei Bobrov]

cellArray ={'O2930202    465254.432       4066809.025';
    'O2910008    499252.083        4042876.84';
    'O2920014    494404.625       4047958.526'}

out1 = regexp(cellArray,'(^[a-zA-Z]*)|((?<=^\w*)\d*)','match');
out = cat(1,out1{:});

Answer 2

[Jim Hokanson]

Try not to use lookaround operators in Matlab.

If you only want the first column:

first_column_string = regexp(cellArray,'\d+','match','once')

first_column_numbers = str2double(first_column_string)

The key is using 'once' ...

If your input was a single string you could use textscan:

str = strjoin(cellArray','\n') %2013a?

or

temp = strcat(cellArray,{char(10)});
str = [temp{:}];

data = textscan(str,'O%f %f %f','MultipleDelimsAsOne',true);

first_column_numbers  = data{1}