How to match different cell arrays of different sizes with one cell array of another different size?

I have different cell arrays with different sizes 1×3 and 1×2:

    line38 = {'38-1', '38-2', '38-3'};
    line60 = {'60-1', '60-2', '60-3'};
    line48 = {'48-1', '48-2'};
    line52 = {'52-1', '52-2'};
    line61 = {'61-1', '61-2', '61-3'};
    line76 = {'76-1', '76-2', '76-3'};
    line66 = {'66-1', '66-2'};
    line70 = {'70-1', '70-2'};
    line26 = {'26-1', '26-2', '26-3'};
    line94 = {'94-1', '94-2', '94-3'};
    line89 = {'89-1', '89-2'};
    line90 = {'90-1', '90-2'};

I need to match these cells with a cell array of 1236×2

[Guillaume]

line38=...
line60=...
line48=...
linexx=...

Do not do that!. If you're numbering variables (or any kind of sequential naming) you're doing it wrong. Clearly, all these variables are related so they all belong together in a container. In your case a cell array (which thus would itself contain cell arrays).

Whatever the solution is to your question it will be much harder to implement with numbered variable.

See faq-how-can-i-create-variables-a1-a2-a10-in-a-loop and many other posts for why numbering variables is an extremely bad practice.

Answer 1

[Birdman]

Consider your 1236x2 cell array is named a. Use ismember.

ismember(a,line38)
ismember(a,line60)

and so on.

[Sherif Shokry]

I tried and got this error:

"Error using cell/ismember Input A of class cell and input B of class cell must be cell arrays of character vectors, unless one is a character vector."

[Birdman]

Well, I assume your bigger cell array contains numeric variables as elements. Convert them into characters and try it because it works.

[Sherif Shokry]

could you please advise me which command? because I tried 'cellstr" and "chr" but it doesn't work

[Birdman]

Send me your 1236x2 cell array in a mat file.

[Sherif Shokry]

Many thanks in advance.

Note: the number of rows is changeable because it is a dynamic processing, so it is growing up by the time

[Birdman]

Hi again,

The problem is that you try to search the entire cell array, but you are interested in second column. All you need to do is:

find(ismember(veh_linklanes(:,2),line38))

and you will see the indexes(rows) in second column(if there bigger one contains the small one).

[Sherif Shokry]

Thank you so much