What is the alternative for startsWith function in Matlab 2013?

TF = startsWith(names_cell,pattern)

I have a snippet of code written above. The names_cell is a cell array and pattern is a string array.

I need to find an alternative in Matlab R2013b, where there is no such a function.

[Daniel M]

Use regexp()

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

temp = arrayfun(@(S) strncmp(names_cell, S, length(S)), pattern, 'uniform', 0);
nd = ndims(temp{1}) + 1;
TF = or(cat(nd, temp{:}), nd);

This is designed to work no matter how many dimensions names_cell has. The output should be the same size as names_cell is.

The code can be simplified for the more common case where pattern is a character vector or scalar string array.

[Kapa Kudaibergenov]

Why doesn't it create the array of the same size as names_cell? It should create e.g. 1x12 array with 1s and 0s, instead it creates 9x12 array with only 1s.

[Walter Roberson]

What is size(names_cell) and size(pattern) ?

At one point some functions shifted from giving a row vector result in some cases to giving a column vector result instead; I would need to test further on that point. I am not sure I have R2013b still installed though.

Answer 2

[Akansha Saxena]

TF = cellfun(@(x) strncmpi(x, pattern, length(pattern)),names_cell);