Convert nested text cell array

Hi,

I have a nested text cell array of different lengths. I would like to make a table from them.

myarray = {{{'a'}}
    {{'b'} {'c'}}}
myarray =
2×1 cell array
{1×1 cell}
{1×2 cell}

Using the suggestion here: https://nl.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/499119-making-cell-array-of-cells-of-strings-the-same-size-by-adding-empty-strings:

maxlen = max(cellfun(@numel, myarray));
newcellarray = cellfun(@(s) [s, repmat({''}, 1, maxlen - numel(s))], myarray, 'UniformOutput', false);

I got this:

newcellarray =
1×2 cell array
{1×2 cell}    {1×2 cell}

When I do array2table:

array2table(newcellarray)

ans =

  2×1 table

    newcellarray
    ____________

     {1×2 cell} 
     {1×2 cell} 

But I would like to get something like:

 var1   var2
 'a'    ''
 'b'    'c'

Alternatively, if every row of the cell array would be converted to a python-list like structure, it would be even better:

 ['a', '']
 ['b', 'c']

Even better if every list would be different size:

 ['a']
 ['b', 'c']

[Stephen23]

"if every row of the cell array would be converted to a python-list like structure,"

A python list is basically the same as a MATLAB cell array (i.e. mutable container class), so it is not clear how what you are requsting would be any different from what you show.

MATLAB does not have a "list" type, your examples use the concatenation operator to concatenate character arrays.

[Dora Schuller]

I see, thanks for the answer. I just wanted to convert it to a human readable format, which displays what is exactly inside the cells. But the answer below worked.

Answer 1

[DGM]

I'm sure there's a simpler way, but idk.

This will convert to a table. Note that the table columns are cell vectors. This is the normal behavior of cell2table, and is necessary as the alternative would be a char column vector with empty elements -- something which can't exist, as arrays can't have holes in them.

myarray = {{{'a'}}
    {{'b'} {'c'}}};

maxlen = max(cellfun(@numel, myarray));
newcellarray = cellfun(@(s) [s, repmat({{''}}, 1, maxlen - numel(s))], myarray, 'UniformOutput', false);

% if the inner cells are scalar:
newcellarray = vertcat(newcellarray{:});
newcellarray = cellfun(@(x) horzcat(x{:}),newcellarray,'uniform',false); % get rid of inner cells
T = cell2table(newcellarray)

T = 2×2 table
    newcellarray1    newcellarray2
    _____________    _____________

        {'a'}         {0×0 char}  
        {'b'}         {'c'     }  

I don't know anything about python, but I don't know why it wouldn't suffice to just get rid of the redundant nesting of the original cell array.

% alternative?
newcellarray2 = cellfun(@(x) horzcat(x{:}),myarray,'uniform',false); % get rid of inner cells

[Dora Schuller]

Thank you, this worked!