split columns with separate elements

I have a column with lastnames and insertions. How can i split those? Cause not all the lastnames have the same number of elements.

a = bookings.child_firstname
b = split(a,' ')

Now I have the following error:

Error using split
Element 8 of the text contains 1 matches while the previous elements
have 0. All elements must contain the same number of matches.

[Walter Roberson]

a = bookings.child_firstname

is that returning a cell array of character vectors? A nonscalar string array?

[dpb]

split probably isn't the tool for the job here -- more likely a regular expression would be able to parse the variable strings, but would need to see the definition of what the string format can be and what you're trying to extract, specifically.

split is, as the error message indicates, unforgiving in that every record must have the same number of delimiters; I've wished for more flexibility there quite a number of times, too, but to use it on data that is not strictly conforming as to following a given pattern you'll have to wrap it in either try...catch...end construct to handle the missing cases or count/locate the bum strings and have code to specifically deal with what is found.

Better is to have a fixed, well-defined format that the data must follow and enforce it on creation/data entry.

[Walter Roberson]

regexp(a, '\s+', 'split')

would return a cell array with one entry for each a entry, with the cell array entry being a cell array of character vectors (or possibly a string array?)

[dpb]

One could also investigate the new(ish) pattern object/function that has "regexp for dummies" kind of functionality...