MATLAB Central Newsreader - putting together "cell" and "double"

putting together "cell" and "double"

Anna Chen — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:13:03 -0400

hello,
i have a file that contains a data table, with data and the
header names. when i use xlsread, the data part gets put
as "double," but the header names all get put into "cell"
format, and i can't figure out how to splice the two
together. can anyone help?

i guess basically, if i have something like "dwe ewrwe ere"
that is in cell format, and i want to put it over " 1 3 4"
which are numbers to get

dwe ewrwe ere
1 3 4

how would i do that?

thanks!

Re: putting together

Scott Burnside — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:09:02 -0400

"Anna Chen" <icedredtea@yahoo.com> wrote in message
<g6vjne$68m$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> hello,
> i have a file that contains a data table, with data and
the
> header names. when i use xlsread, the data part gets
put
> as "double," but the header names all get put
into "cell"
> format, and i can't figure out how to splice the two
> together. can anyone help?
>
> i guess basically, if i have something like "dwe ewrwe
ere"
> that is in cell format, and i want to put it over " 1 3
4"
> which are numbers to get
>
> dwe ewrwe ere
> 1 3 4
>
> how would i do that?
>
> thanks!

Anna,

Does your data look like this?:

Symbol, Exchange, Date, Time, Bid
CMGI, ARCA, 20040901, 9:31:33, 1.99
GE, ISLAND, 20040901, 9:31:34, 34.63
QQQQ, AUTO, 20040901, 9:31:35, 35.13

That is, do you have a delimited headerline? Is the data a
mix of numeric and text columns?

If so, you can take a look at autodataread.m in the File
Exchange.

Scott

Re: putting together "cell" and "double"

Peter Perkins — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:16:41 -0400

Anna Chen wrote:
> hello,
> i have a file that contains a data table, with data and the
> header names. when i use xlsread, the data part gets put
> as "double," but the header names all get put into "cell"
> format, and i can't figure out how to splice the two
> together. can anyone help?
>
> i guess basically, if i have something like "dwe ewrwe ere"
> that is in cell format, and i want to put it over " 1 3 4"
> which are numbers to get
>
> dwe ewrwe ere
> 1 3 4
>
> how would i do that?

Anna, if you have access to the Statistics Toolbox, the dataset array may be what you are looking for:

>> dwe = 1; ewrwe = 3; ere = 4;
>> ds = dataset(dwe,ewrwe,ere)
ds =
    dwe ewrwe ere
    1 3 4

and it is possible to read data in the format you describe directly from an Excel file, along with the column names, into a dataset array. It is really intended more for putting data of different types together into a single array, and is probably overkill for scalar values like that, but you may find it helpful. An alternative for your specific example might be

>> struct('dwe',1,'ewrwe',3,'ere',4)
ans =
      dwe: 1
    ewrwe: 3
      ere: 4

Re: putting together "cell" and "double"

roberson@ibd.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca (Walter Roberson) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:17:39 -0400

In article <g6vjne$68m$1@fred.mathworks.com>,
Anna Chen <icedredtea@yahoo.com> wrote:

>i have a file that contains a data table, with data and the
>header names. when i use xlsread, the data part gets put
>as "double," but the header names all get put into "cell"
>format, and i can't figure out how to splice the two
>together. can anyone help?

>i guess basically, if i have something like "dwe ewrwe ere"
>that is in cell format, and i want to put it over " 1 3 4"
>which are numbers to get

>dwe ewrwe ere
>1 3 4

Is that for display purposes only (that is, you are expecting to
get a character output that happens to have that format), or are
you hoping to somehow get a single matrix that contains the strings
as column headers but also has pure numeric values for the columns?
It isn't too bad to do for display purposes, but in Matlab
numeric matrices cannot have character headers.

--
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of build now and repair later." -- Walter Hickle