read cell array and split into one cell array of multiple rows

Hello,

I have a cell array with strings, for example:

names =

  2×1 cell array

    {'A               B               C               D               E               F               G               H               '}
    {'I               J               '                                                                                                }

I want them in an array like this one:

    KNAME =

  10×1 cell array

    {'A'}
    {'B'}
    {'C'}
    {'D'}
    {'E'}
    {'F'}
    {'G'}
    {'H'}
    {'I'}
    {'J'}    

I do something too complicated that works but I am guessing there is an easier solution to this

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

name = {...
    'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPB               C               D               E               F               G               H';...
    'I               J               '};
kname = regexp(name,'\w{1,16}','match');
kname = [kname{:}].'

Giving:

>> kname{:}
ans = ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP
ans = B
ans = C
ans = D
ans = E
ans = F
ans = G
ans = H
ans = I
ans = J

[FM]

One more question, what if there is a dot (.) on the name? for example A.BC

I'm just trying to do something general, where each name could have any sort of character (letters digits, dot(.)) .I see it works with digits and characters but it doesn't when there is '.' on the name, it splits at the dot. I'm sorry, I hadn't realized it was a special character that is why I hadn't mentioned it originally.

[Stephen23]

To include a period character you can use this regular expression:

'[\w\.]{1,16}'

That will match from 1 to 16 letters, digits, undescores, and periods. The MATLAB documentation explains how regular expressions are defined:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/matlab_prog/regular-expressions.html

It does take a lot of practice and reading the documentation to get used to regular expressions, so feel free to ask if you want more help.

[FM]

Thank you!!

Answer 2

[Omer Yasin Birey]

name{1,:} =     {'A               B               C               D               E               F               G               H'};
name{2,:} =     {'J '};

str = string(name);
C = arrayfun( @(x) strsplit( x, ' ' ), str, 'UniformOutput', false );
conc = horzcat(C{:})';
cellA  =  cellstr(conc);

[FM]

Thank you! This works perfectly with my example but I just realized that my original cell array could be like this (I get this array by reading an external file):

names =

  2×1 cell array

    {'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPB               C               D               E               F               G               H               '}
    {'I               J               '                                                                                                }   

Each individual name can have up to 16 characters and if it does in that case there is no blank space between that one and the next, (in this new example ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP and B). Is there a way to set the delimiter as a number of characters instead of a white space?

I'm sorry for not realizing this before

[Omer Yasin Birey]

Yes FM, Stephen's answer can do what you want.