converting categorical array to cell array

Hi all, I am trying to convert a categorical array to a cell array so that I can use the strrep function, but i cant seem to find anyway to do it after scouring the web to the best of my abilities. My categorical column contains string that have the '_' character and i want to search the column and replace any string that has '_' with '-'. Is there any way I can do it without converting the datatype? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

Answer 1

[Fangjun Jiang]

a=nominal({'R_','G_','B_'});
b=cellstr(a);
c=strrep(b,'_','-');
d=nominal(c)

d =

     R-      G-      B-

[Boy]

Thank you for the quick response Fangjun. But i have a dataset where column 3 is nominal datatype. Can i change the entire column from nominal to cell array? Thank You

[Salma Hassan]

C = cellstr(A) check this link https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/cellstr.html

Answer 2

[xingxingcui]

@Fangjun Jiang update new workflow.

a=categorical({'R_','G_','B_'});
b=string(a);
c=replace(b,'_','-');
d=categorical(c)

d = 1×3 categorical array
     R-      G-      B- 

BTW, Convert categorical array to cell array in general way Example.

A = categorical(["A","B","C","D","hello","world"]) % categorical array

A = 1×6 categorical array
     A      B      C      D      hello      world 

dst = num2cell(A) % cell array

dst = 1×6 cell array
    {[A]}    {[B]}    {[C]}    {[D]}    {[hello]}    {[world]}

if A is a complex arrays,also can use mat2cell function.

A = categorical(["A","B","Hello","world .";
    "1","2","3","四"])

A = 2×4 categorical array
     A      B      Hello      world . 
     1      2      3          四      

dst = mat2cell(A,[1,1],[2,1,1])

dst = 2×3 cell array
    {[A    B]}    {[Hello]}    {[world .]}
    {[1    2]}    {[3    ]}    {[四     ]}

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[Fangjun Jiang]

Thank you for the update.