comparing matices that contain numbers and NaNs

 I have 2 cell matrices R and W and I want to check  if they contain the same elements. Specifically, I want to compare R which is obtained from

[N,T,R] = xlsread( filename); %

 with another matrix W.Both matrices are cell matrices and can also contain NaN entries.

My goal: If my calculations are correct then

          kk=W(7 ,3:end); should contain the same elements with

zz1=R(7,3:end);

or zz2=R(8,3:end);

So to test this I do something like

if zz==xx1 | zz== xx2

'OK' else 'Not OK' EndThe problem is that

zz==xx1

??? Undefined function or method 'eq' for input arguments of type 'cell'.

So I use cell2mat(zz)==cell2mat(xx1) and it works.

But if zz and xx1 contain NaN then for some reason I cannot use the cell2mat() approach

I am looking for a general approach that will enable me to do that comparison whether I have NaN and numbers or only numbers’

thanks

[Jan]

@Readers: It seems like anonet wants to compare cells, which contain numerical and string values.

Answer 1

[Andrei Bobrov]

variant of comparison cell arrays (edit)

A = {...
[84]    [ 93]    [   109]
[99]    [NaN]    [    62]
[29]    [123]    'dgdgdg'};
B = {...
[84]    [ 93]    [   109]
[99]    [NaN]    [    62]
[29]    [123]    'dgdgdg'};

A1=A;
B1=B;
A1(cellfun(@(x)all(isnan(x)),A)) = {0};
B1(cellfun(@(x)all(isnan(x)),B)) = {0};
out = isequal(A1,B1);

[antonet]

thanks andrei. I think there is a mistake in

A1=A;

B1=B;

[Andrei Bobrov]

yas, thank.

[antonet]

can i omit

A1=A;

B1=B;

so as to simlpy have

 A = {...
[84]    [ 93]    [   109]
[99]    [NaN]    [    62]
[29]    [123]    'dgdgdg'};
B = {...
[84]    [ 93]    [   109]
[99]    [NaN]    [    62]
[29]    [123]    'dgdgdg'};

A(cellfun(@(x)all(isnan(x)),A)) = {0};

B(cellfun(@(x)all(isnan(x)),B)) = {0};

out = isequal(A,B)

thanks

[Andrei Bobrov]

Hi Antonet! Thank you for "Accepted answer", but I mean that Jan's answer better.

Answer 2

[Jan]

C1 = {'String1', 23, -17, NaN,  1:29);
C2 = {'String2', 24, -17.3, 21, 1:30);
C3 = {'String1', 23, -17, NaN,  1:29);

% |C1==C2| fails!
isequalwithequalnans(C1, C2)
isequalwithequalnans(C1, C3)

I cannot test this currently. When NaNs should be assumed to be different, isequal would do it.

[antonet]

Thank you simon as well!

[Andrei Bobrov]

+1

[Teja Muppirala]

On more recent releases, there is the ISEQUALN function so you don't have to write out ISEQUALWITHEQUALNANS

[antonet]

what is +1 means?

Answer 3

[Kevin Claytor]

My guess from searching the help docs for 'cell' gives;

m = cell2mat(c) converts a multidimensional cell array c with contents of the same data type into a single matrix, m.

[antonet]

I forgot to tell you that it contains also string variables and if i type

cell2mat(c)

i get :

Error using cell2mat (line 46) All contents of the input cell array must be of the same data type.

[Walter Roberson]

What do you want to have happen in the locations that contain strings? It is not possible for a numeric array to contain strings.

[Jan]

@antonet: Please provide the necessary information in the original question, because readers in this forum will read it at first. Therefore you can edit the question.

The code you have posted is hard to read. Please read the instructions about code formatting again.