Problem with "Intersect" function

Hellow everyone! I have 2 cells.

A = '1,2,3';
B=   '1,4,5,6';

But, When i try to use intersect function to get the common element(s) as my result, say

C = intersect(A, B);

I am getting an empty cell like this.

C = 

     Empty cell array: 1-by-0

Kindly help me, My result shall show like

C='1'

Your help will be highly appreciated!

[alice]

Hi,

I think your A and B are:

A = {'1,2,3'};
B = {'1,4,5,6'};

This means A is a cell containing the string '1,2,3' and B is a cell containing the string '1,4,5,6'. These strings are different, so the intersection of A and B is empty.

To get what you want, the numbers should be separated (different strings, or just numbers).

How are A and B defined in your code?

[Stephen23]

"Problem with "Intersect" function"

There is no problem with intersect: you have given it two cell arrays containing different strings, so clearly the intersection is an empty cell array. This is exactly as the documentation states.

[pradeep kumar]

@ Alice! Yes, A & B are different cells and contain strings. Please tell me how can i break them to individual number (or strings) to get my job done.

[pradeep kumar]

@ Stephen Cobeldick , You mean to say my cells should look like the following .

A={'1','2','3'};
B={'1','4','5','6'};

Kindly tell me, how can i achieve this?

Answer 1

[Jan]

But the shown code works:

A = '1,2,3';
B = '1,4,5,6';
C = intersect(A, B);
% C = ',1'   % The commonly appearing characters ',' and '1'

According to the posted code, A and B are not cells, but char vectors, also called strings.

If you want to treat the numbers as numbers:

An = sscanf(A, '%g,');
Bn = sscanf(B, '%g,');
Cn = intersect(An, Bn)
% C = 1

If A and B are cells, use "A{1}" and "B{1}" instead.

It depends on your specific problem if the input data should be

A = {'1','2','3'};

or

A = [1,2,3]

Most likely you do not have to convert the cell string {'1,2,3'}, if you choose the rigth method to obtain the data at the beginning. Where do these data come from?

Answer 2

[KSSV]

A = [1,2,3] ;
B =   [1,4,5,6];
intersect(A,B)

OR

A = '1,2,3';
B=   '1,4,5,6';
intersect(str2num(A),str2num(B))

[pradeep kumar]

@ KSSV, str2num doesn't work, since A and B are 2 cells. It shows the following error.

Error using str2num (line 32)
Requires string or character array input.

Kindly help me.