Extracting text from a cell

A='00003H102'

How can I write a code to extract the first 6 letters and numbers. i.e. I want B='00003H';

[Jan]

@joseph: From the comments later on we see, that your data are not A='00003H102', but that you talk of a cell string. Please care for posting the real input data, because posting wrong answers for wrong inputs wastes your and our time. Thanks.

What is the wanted result, when the string has less than 6 characters?

Answer 1

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

A='00003H102'
A(1:6)

If you have a cell array

A={'00003H102','00003H103','00003H104'}
B=cellfun(@(x) x(1:6),A,'un',0)

[joseph Frank]

No it is not working because I have many observations and not simply one. For example: A={'00003H102';'000165100'}; how can I get B={'00003H';'000165'};

[joseph Frank]

I am receiving an error Index exceeds matrix dimensions.

Error in @(x)x(1:6) the array is 30000x1 . it is possible I think that I have rows will less than 6 characters. IS there a way to overcome this problem by selecting the first 6 letters and numbers only if the number of characters is more or equal to 6?

[Narges M]

ofcourse there is. have 6 be a variable: var = 6. then use an if-statement to change the value in var, in case the length of the current row is less than 6.

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

Yes it's possible

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

A={'00003H102','00003H103','00003H104','00003'}
idx=cellfun(@(x) min(numel(x),6),A,'un',0)
B=cellfun(@(x,y) x(1:y),A,idx,'un',0)

Answer 2

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

A={'00003H102','00003H103','00003H104','00003' []}
B=cellfun(@(x) x(1:min(numel(x),6)),A,'un',0)

Answer 3

[Andrei Bobrov]

B = regexp(A,'^.{0,6}','match')
B = cat(1,B{:});