replacing NaN with zeros in a cell column of strings

Dear all,

I have this column

 A={[NaN]
    [NaN]
    [NaN]
    [NaN]
    [NaN]
 'ka'
[NaN]
    [NaN]
'jdfksjkg'
'ldsiu'
[NaN]
    [NaN]
'jdfkkg'
'jdfkkg'

};

and I want to replace the NaN with zeros that is ,

 A={[0]
    [0]
    [0]
    [0]
    [0]
 'ka'
[0]
    [0]
'jdfksjkg'
'ldsiu'
[0]
    [0]
'jdfkkg'
'jdfkkg'

};

Is there a way of doing that in matlab?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

[Jan]

Are the NaNs the only non-CHAR elements? Then:

A(~cellfun('isclass', A, 'char')) = {0};

[antonet]

thanks Jan. I have columns of dimension 200000 by 1. so I want to avoid using loops

Answer 2

[Wayne King]

One way is just with a for loop:

for ii = 1:length(A) 
   if isnan(A{ii})
     A{ii} = 0; 
   end
end

[antonet]

thanks for the reply. I am looking for something simpler; that is, without loop. Any other suggestion?

[Image Analyst]

Wow, 5 lines is too complicated?!? Any shorter way is likely to be more obtuse, not as straightforward and easy to follow, and harder to maintain because it'd be more cryptic. What's wrong with a loop, especially for only 14 variables? I mean, it's not like you have tens of millions or anything, so speed is definitely NOT going to be an issue.

[Jan]

This is the most simplest method. +1

[Shane Hagen]

isnan doesnt work for cells...can anyone help?

If i separate out the individual cell with NaN it works but not in the loop

ix=cellfun(@isempty,spiketimes);

spiketimes(ix)={0} ; %which I wish would just put 0's

for ii = 1:length(spiketimes)

if isnan(spiketimes{ii})

spiketimes{ii} = 0;

end end

results = spiketimes{j};

%n = length(results(j,:));

plot([results{:} ; results{:}], [ones(1,n)*j-1;ones(1,n)*j],'k-'); end; end;

Undefined function 'isnan' for input arguments of type 'cell'.

this is at the end of my code..would appreciate any help

Answer 3

[Cedric]

You can go for something like:

 A(cellfun(@(x)all(x~=x), A)) = {0} ;

but it is just "cosmetic" (in some sense) and the loop proposed by Wayne (with a little update so it manages well non-scalar content) is likely to be more efficient.

[antonet]

Any other sugestion?

thanks

[Jan]

@antonet: You got two working solutions. Asking for more solutions without explaining, why you are not satisfied already, is not efficient. Please do not let us guess, what you are exactly looking for, because this wastes your and our time.