Delete Table Rows based of certain characters in a row

i imported data from a .txt file into a table that is approximately of size (96,000x26), im looking to delete rows based off of a string of characters contained in the first column of that data, then export the updated table to a .csv file

[the cyclist]

Can you upload the data (or a small, representative sample)? You can use the paper clip icon in the INSERT section of the toolbar. It will then be much easier to make sure our code works for your example. (For example, the syntax will depend on whether the first column is a string, or a character array.)

Answer 1

[Jon]

I think this is a simple example of what you want to do

name = {'cat','dog','fish','bear'}'

name = 4×1 cell array
    {'cat' }
    {'dog' }
    {'fish'}
    {'bear'}

weight = [3,25,8,300]'

weight = 4×1

3 25 8 300

T = table(name,weight)

T = 4×2 table
      name      weight
    ________    ______

    {'cat' }       3  
    {'dog' }      25  
    {'fish'}       8  
    {'bear'}     300  

% remove rows with names that contain an a
idl = contains(T.name,'a');
T = T(~idl,:)

T = 2×2 table
      name      weight
    ________    ______

    {'dog' }      25  
    {'fish'}       8  

% Write to .csv'
writetable(T,'myfile.csv')

[Jacob Child]

What if i wanted to keep only rows that had a certain characted string?

[Jon]

So if I only wanted to keep rows where the name was "fish", I could use

name = {'cat','dog','fish','bear','fish'}'

name = 5×1 cell array
    {'cat' }
    {'dog' }
    {'fish'}
    {'bear'}
    {'fish'}

weight = [3,25,8,300,19]'

weight = 5×1

3 25 8 300 19

T = table(name,weight)

T = 5×2 table
      name      weight
    ________    ______

    {'cat' }       3  
    {'dog' }      25  
    {'fish'}       8  
    {'bear'}     300  
    {'fish'}      19  

% keep only rows whose name is 'fish'
idl = strcmp(T.name,'fish');
T = T(idl,:)

T = 2×2 table
      name      weight
    ________    ______

    {'fish'}       8  
    {'fish'}      19  

% Write to .csv'
writetable(T,'myfile.csv')

[Jon]

Or maybe this is what you are asking (if not please provide an example). Let's keep all the rows whose names include goose

name = {'cat','dog','goose','fish','mongoose','bear'}'

name = 6×1 cell array
    {'cat'     }
    {'dog'     }
    {'goose'   }
    {'fish'    }
    {'mongoose'}
    {'bear'    }

weight = [3,25,4,8,16,300]'

weight = 6×1

3 25 4 8 16 300

T = table(name,weight)

T = 6×2 table
        name        weight
    ____________    ______

    {'cat'     }       3  
    {'dog'     }      25  
    {'goose'   }       4  
    {'fish'    }       8  
    {'mongoose'}      16  
    {'bear'    }     300  

% Keep rows that contain 'goose'
idl = contains(T.name,'goose');
T = T(idl,:)

T = 2×2 table
        name        weight
    ____________    ______

    {'goose'   }       4  
    {'mongoose'}      16