Split a cell that contains a string

I have a cell u(38,1) each row has string looking like this :

for example u{1,1} = ''198823 765389 white''

u{2,1} = ''198426 725312 black''

I want the cell u to be divided in 3 colomns such as

u{1,1} = ''198823'' u{1,2}= ''765389'' u{1,3}=''white''

u{2,1} = ''198426'' u{2,1}= ''725312'' u{2,3}=''black''

so basically I want my u(38,1) to become u(38,3)

I have tried strplit, but it seems like it won't work with a cell,

strplit(u,',') %doesn't work'
strplit(u{1,1},',') %works on the first line and returns a cell (1,3)

Answer 1

[Cris LaPierre]

Look into cellfun. This will apply a function to each cell in the cell array.

Here's an example of one way of doing this.

u{1,1} = "198823 765389 white";
u{2,1} = "198426 725312 black"

u = 2x1 cell array
    {["198823 765389 white"]}
    {["198426 725312 black"]}

a=cellfun(@strsplit,u,'UniformOutput',false);
a=vertcat(a{:})

a = 2×3 string array
    "198823"    "765389"    "white"
    "198426"    "725312"    "black"

[Cris LaPierre]

Actually, why keep this a cell? This can be done much simpler if you use strings.

u{1,1} = "198823 765389 white";
u{2,1} = "198426 725312 black"

u = 2x1 cell array
    {["198823 765389 white"]}
    {["198426 725312 black"]}

% Convert cell array to a string array.
u2 = string(u)

u2 = 2×1 string array
    "198823 765389 white"
    "198426 725312 black"

a2 = split(u2)

a2 = 2×3 string array
    "198823"    "765389"    "white"
    "198426"    "725312"    "black"

[Melissa Ette]

Thank you it worked with a string array!!!