How to search for an exact string not just contains

Hiyah

I'm searching a cell array for an exact string, e.g the data I am searching contains both 'Las Vegas, NV' and 'North Las Vegas, NV' and I want specifically the coordinats of 'Las Vegas, NV'

the code I've used so far is:

Y = ~cellfun('isempty',strfind(cellstr(num),'Las Vegas, NV'));

(then [row col] = find(Y==1) )

how do I modify?

Thanks alot !

Answer 1

[the cyclist]

Use strcmp instead, which checks for identical matches.

loc = {'Las Vegas, NV','North Las Vegas, NV'};

match = strcmp(loc,'Las Vegas, NV')

[Sara Ismail-Sutton]

but this isnt the entire goal of my code, this is just an issue in the code. i.e. it identifies anything which contains it, whereas i need a exact match...

[the cyclist]

Did you try my code? It only marks the first cell (the exact match) as "true".

[Sara Ismail-Sutton]

well i'm not sure how to implement it. my task is finding directions between arbitary cities, a and b.

i've done the stage of calulated the coordinates and then get these to navigate to the right place in the table of the data which gives the distance. my code has passsed the test for random cities who's string is such that one does not contain another. but i have came across this problem for the case of las vegas and las vegas north as in the original post. For e.g in arbritary language so far is:

function[distance] = get_distance(a,b)

[words,num,raw]=xlsread('Distances.xlsx');

X = ~cellfun('isempty',strfind(cellstr(num),a));
Y = ~cellfun('isempty',strfind(cellstr(num),b));
[row col] = find(X==1);
[r c]=find(Y==1);

a1=row(1);
a2=col(1);
a=[a1 a2]

b1=r(2)
b2=c(2)
b=[b1 b2]

c=[(a1+1),(b1+1)]



distance=raw{c(1),c(2)}

end

many thanks

[Paul Safier]

@the cyclist your answer was definitely what was needed. Thanks!

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

I'm searching a cell array for an exact string

Use ismember()

[Sara Ismail-Sutton]

i also need it to convert a cell array to a logical array, i.e as above num is a cell array while X and Y are logical arrays. does ismember() do this too? thanks

[Walter Roberson]

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/ismember.html

Lia = ismember(A,B) returns an array containing logical 1 (true) where the data in A is found in B. Elsewhere, the array contains logical 0 (false).

[Sara Ismail-Sutton]

ok so i modified my code as for the X and Y , e.g,

X = ~cellfun('isempty',ismember(cellstr(num),a));

but then i get the error message saying "cellfun works only on cells"

[Walter Roberson]

ismember returns the logical array directly .

For your purposes,

mask = ismember(CellOfCharacterVectors, CharacterVectorToLookFor)

works out the same as

mask = cellfun(@(S) strcmp(S, CharacterVectorToLookFor), CellOfCharacterVectors)

which again would be a logical array. You can then do things like find(mask) .

Or if you use ismember() you could reverse the arguments and look at the second output of ismember() ...

[Sara Ismail-Sutton]

I just tried this

mask = ismember(CellOfCharacterVectors, CharacterVectorToLookFor)

so :

X = ismember((num),a));

But got the error (corresponding to this line) as "When calling a function or indexing a variable, use parentheses. Otherwise, check for mismatched delimiters"

thanks...

[Walter Roberson]

X = ismember((num),a));
            1    1  0
             2      -1

Count your open brackets.

[Sara Ismail-Sutton]

omg hahhaa, yeh got it from the other line anywauy, thanks alot