How do I assign an empty matrix to elements of a cell array in MATLAB?

Question

I want to manipulate a cell array and make certain indices of the cell array contain the empty matrix []. I can't seem to figure out how to do this:

>> yy=num2cell(1:10)

yy = 

  [1]    [2]    [3]    [4]    [5]    [6]    [7]    [8]    [9]    [10]

>> yy{1:2:end}=[]
??? The right hand side of this assignment has too few values to satisfy
 the left hand side.
>> yy(1:2:end) = []

yy = 

  [2]    [4]    [6]    [8]    [10]

Bah! Can't seem to do what I want. I want to leave empty elements in the cell array, e.g.

  []    [2]    []    [4]    []    [6]    []    [8]    []    [10]

Any suggestions? My index vector could be arbitrary, and either in index form or boolean form, not necessarily [1 3 5 7 9].

gnovice · Accepted Answer · 2009-12-14 20:15:27Z

7

What you can do is index the cell array (not the contents) using () and change each cell to an empty cell {[]}:

yy(1:2:end) = {[]};

An alternative is to use the DEAL function, but it looks a bit uglier:

[yy{1:2:end}] = deal([]);

answered Dec 14, 2009 at 20:15

gnovice

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2 Comments

Jason S Over a year ago

woohoo! gnovice comes through again. we're going to have to call you "gexpert"

gnovice Over a year ago

I have to become "gintermediate" first. ;)

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