Finding NaNs in cell array.

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Rajesh Patel
Rajesh Patel on 20 May 2016
Answered: Pruthvi G on 12 Mar 2020
I create a cell array by importing some data (text and empty cells) from excel. It looks like this.. "Data_text =
Columns 1 through 7
'Speed' 'Load' [NaN] 'Sample' 'Calgen_Model' 'DOE_BSNOx' 'DOE_Pmax'
I want to find columns which contains NaN (from empty cells in excel) and delete those columns. I tried following but it does not seems to work.
Column_Names = cell2table(Data_text);
a = cellfun(@isnan,Data_text);
Thanks,
  1 Comment
Pruthvi G
Pruthvi G on 12 Mar 2020
Data(cellfun(@(cell) any(isnan(cell(:))),Data))={''};

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Answers (3)

Fangjun Jiang
Fangjun Jiang on 20 May 2016
Data_text={'Speed' 'Load' [NaN] 'Sample'};
index=cellfun(@isnan,Data_text,'uni',false);
index=cellfun(@any,index);
Data_text(index)=[];
  2 Comments
Rajesh Patel
Rajesh Patel on 20 May 2016
Thanks seems to be working. But I have couple of questions if you do not mind.
  1. # What does the line "index=cellfun(@any,index);" do?
  2. # Now if in the original array of "Data_text" had multiple rows and if I wanted to find NaN only in 1st row and delete columns corresponding to it, what modification to code need to be done?
Again, Thanks for quick answer.
Fangjun Jiang
Fangjun Jiang on 20 May 2016
Data_text={'a','b', nan ,'c';1,2,3,4};
index=cellfun(@isnan,Data_text(1,:),'uni',false);
index=cellfun(@any,index);
Data_text(:,index)=[];
The first index is still a cell array. Use cellfun(@any,...) to get the logical index. Type "help any" to find the info for the any() function.

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Azzi Abdelmalek
Azzi Abdelmalek on 20 May 2016
Data_text={'Speed' 'Load' nan 'Sample'}
Data_text(:,cellfun(@(x) any(isnan(x)),Data_text(1,:)))=[]

Pruthvi G
Pruthvi G on 12 Mar 2020
Data(cellfun(@(cell) any(isnan(cell(:))),Data))={''};

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