Selecting specific Strings from a cell array

Dear all,

I have a dataset with 400000 cells and all cells contain strings. So for example:

Array_A = {'A01','A02','A01','A03','A04','A03'}

I want to go through this cell structure, read the first cell which is 'A01' I want to then save 'A01' to an empty cell array (call it Array_B) and delete all the other instances where 'A01' appears, then I would like to loop again through the same array (i.e., Array_A with all 'A01's deleted), pick the first cell with a string in it 'A02' and then add it to 'Array_B' and delete all instance where 'A02' appears. etc.

In a nutshell, I want to have a list of the different variables I have in the cell array. So in the 400000 cells, I have about 800 different variables which have been repeated many time, I only want the list of 800 different variables in a new array.

So in that process I tried something like this with a smaller array 'raw' of 100 rows:

[r c]=size(raw);

%created an empty array test=cell(r,1);

k = linspace(1,100)

for j=1:100; if strcmp(raw{j,1},'A01'); test{k(1,j),1}='A01'; raw{j,1}=[]; end end

The problem here is that even though all the A01's are deleted from the original array, it places all the 'A01''s in the new array as well. I only want one of them in there.

Could someone help me with this? I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest of convenience.

Sincerely yours' Niraj

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

Why not use unique() ?

Answer 2

[Niraj Poudel]

Thank you Walter. This might work. I will let you know once I try it out.

Sincerely yours' Niraj

Answer 3

[Niraj Poudel]

Hi Walter,

Thank you very much for your suggestion. It worked perfectly.

Sincerely' Niraj