find a cell array of strings in another cell array of strings

I have two cell array of strings, say A and B. I would like to find all cells in B, in which cells of A are occurred! for example:
A={'aa';'a a';'b a'}
B={'s a';'a a';'ll';'a a';'b a';'h f'}
Here 'a a' happened twice in B, and also 'b a' happened once and 'aa' never happened. Then I would like to delete those cells, so I will have:
B={'s a';'ll';'h f'}
So, I have to consider the repetition of strings like 'a a'.
Does anyone know how to do this?
Many thanks

Answers (2)

ismember is the function that tells you if elements of a set are found in another set.
A = {'aa'; 'a a'; 'b a'}
B = {'s a'; 'a a'; 'll'; 'a a'; 'b a'; 'h f'}
%find which cells of A are in B
isAinB = ismember(A, B);
fprintf('''%s'' of A was found in B\n', A{isAinB});
%find which cells of B are in A and delete them
isBinA = ismember(B, A);
B(isBinA) = []
So you want the keep the elements in B that are not in A. This is known is the difference in sets, implemented in matlab like this
A = {'aa' ; 'a a' ; 'b a'}
B = {'s a' ; 'a a' ; 'll' ; 'a a' ; 'b a' ; 'h f'}
OUT = setdiff(B,A)

2 Comments

Thank you very much for quick reply.
But the problem is that this function also does something like unique function. that it also remove any repetition of other strings in B that are important for me to keep them.
Then use ismember as per my answer.

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Asked:

on 14 Apr 2016

Commented:

on 14 Apr 2016

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