join tables based on string in one cell in the other

I have 2 tables, call them foo and bar. foo has strings in the form "foobar" in column 1. bar has strings in the form 'foobar' in column one.

foo{1,1} = "060514191658"
bar{1,1} =  1×1 cell array    {'060514191658'}

foo(1,1) =  table        CaseID        "060514191658"
bar(1,1) =  table        CaseID       '060514191658'

When I try

>> join(foo,bar)

I get:

Error using tabular/join (line 129)
Left and right key variables 'CaseID' and 'CaseID' are not comparable because one is a non-cell.

How do I convert one or another to be able to join on this column.

I've tried every conversion I can think of and still can't get there.

[per isakson]

You have different types of strings as value of CaseID. See

• String array and
• Character array

Answer 1

[Eric Tao]

You need to convert strings in foo.var1 to characters, assuming the 1st column name in foo and bar are both 'var1'.

Run:

foo.var1_converted = cellfun(@(x) char(x),foo.var1,'UniformOutput',false);

then you will get a new column 'var1_converted' in foo, which contains the converted characters from strings in column 'var1'.

Then run:

new_tab = join(foo,bar,'leftkeys','var1_converted','rightkeys','var1');

you will get your joined table.

[jkr]

Excellent, thank you, just what I needed.