How to extract substring from string?

I have to extract string from a string for ex: p = 'robin goes to mary'

in format such that string after 'robin' and string before 'mary' is displayed i.e. ' goes to '

*without using the text in between i.e. ' goes to ', as I don't know what lies between the start and end strings in my original text *

without using extractBetween, extractAfter, extractBefore and string indices I am using Matlab2016a

[Megan]

ok

Answer 1

[Birdman]

p='robin goes to mary';
regexprep(p,'robin | mary','')

[Image Analyst]

Note: that trims off spaces. If you want the spaces on there, then you can do this:

middleString = regexprep(p,'robin|mary','')

Clever approach. +1 vote. (I wish I knew regexprep better!)

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

Try this:

p = 'robin goes to mary'
template = 'robin';
index1 = strfind(p, template) + length(template)
index2 = strfind(p, 'mary')
middleString = p(index1:index2)
% trim off any spaces if desired
middleString = strtrim(middleString)

Answer 3

[Stephen23]

Simpler to use regexprep:

>> str = 'robin goes to mary';
>> regexprep(str,'(^\w+|\w+$)','')
ans =
 goes to