How to take only first part of the string

Hi,

I have cell matrix as below:

column1  column2  column3 
HaH      16 years  14
Tay      23        23 s
YAH      24 %      shift

In column2~3, I only want to take first part if it is mixed string, my desired output:

HaH      16  14
Tay      23  23
YAH      24  shift

Answer 1

[Cedric]

Assuming that all cells content is of class char:

 B = [A(:,1), cellfun(@(s)regexp(s, '\S+', 'match', 'once'), A(:,2:3), 'UniformOutput', false)] ;

Answer 2

[OCDER]

If dealing cell array with only strings:

A = {
  'HaH'   '16 years'  '14';
  'Tay'   '23'        '23 s';
  'YAH'   '24 %'      'shift'};
B = cellfun(@(x) sscanf(x, '%s', 1), A, 'uniformoutput', false); %scan every cell for 1st part

B = 
    'HaH'    '16'    '14'   
    'Tay'    '23'    '23'   
    'YAH'    '24'    'shift'

If you also want to convert string part to a number ( ex: '24' to [24] )

Bnum = cellfun(@(x) sscanf(x, '%d', 1), B, 'uniformoutput', false); %scan every cell for 1st double number
NonEmptyIdx = ~cellfun(@isempty, Bnum); %mark where the numbers are in the cell
B(NonEmptyIdx) = Bnum(NonEmptyIdx);     %replace string with number

B = 
    'HaH'    [16]    [   14]
    'Tay'    [23]    [   23]
    'YAH'    [24]    'shift'