Split String in a Table

Hello,

I am attempting to split a string in a table. I am not sure what approach I should be taking. Do I convert the table into an array first, use strsplit, and then recombine arrays into a table?

When I try to use table2array, I get the following error: Cannot concatenate the table variables 'Arbitrary', because their types are double and cell.

Thanks!

Answer 1

[Tejas]

Hello Aldrich,

To split the strings in a column, follow the steps in the example below:

• Make sure the column with strings is a cell array of strings.

    T = table([1; 2; 3], {'a,b,c'; 'd,e,f'; 'g,h,i'}, 'VariableNames', {'Numeric', 'StringColumn'}); 

• Go through each element of the column and store the split strings in a vector. For a better understanding of the 'function handle' used, refer to this documentation: https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/function_handle.html .

    splitStrings = cellfun(@(x) strsplit(x, ','), T.StringColumn, 'UniformOutput', false); 

• Place these split strings into new, separate columns of the table.

    maxSplits = max(cellfun(@length, splitStrings)); 
    for i = 1:maxSplits
        T.(['Part' num2str(i)]) = cellfun(@(x) x{i}, splitStrings, 'UniformOutput', false);
    end

Below is a screenshot of the expected outcome:

[Stephen23]

Num = [1;2;3];
Str = ["a,b,c"; "d,e,f"; "g,h,i"];
tbl = table(Num,Str)

tbl = 3x2 table
    Num      Str  
    ___    _______

     1     "a,b,c"
     2     "d,e,f"
     3     "g,h,i"

out = splitvars(convertvars(tbl,@isstring,@(s)split(s,',')))

out = 3x4 table
    Num    Str_1    Str_2    Str_3
    ___    _____    _____    _____

     1      "a"      "b"      "c" 
     2      "d"      "e"      "f" 
     3      "g"      "h"      "i"