Sorting a cell array of strings on dim

Hello All,

Is there a way I can sort along the 2nd dim of a cell array of strings? When I apply sort(x,2) on the example below, I receive the error msg: DIM and MODE arguments not supported for cell arrays.

I have:

x={'book','apple';'dood','tood';'soon','moon'}
x = 
    'book'    'apple'
    'dood'    'tood' 
    'soon'    'moon'

I want to sort it on 2nd dim, so that I get:

sorted_x=
    'apple'   'book'
    'dood'    'tood' 
    'moon'    'soon'

I greatly appreciate your response.

Noushin

Answer 1

[Guillaume]

Transpose the cell array, sort, and transpose back:

x = {'book','apple';'dood','tood';'soon','moon'};
sorted_x = sort(x')'

[Guillaume]

A generic version of this:

function sorted_c = sort_cell(c, dim)
   %c: an Nd cell array
   %dim: dimension to sort
   permdims = 1:ndims(c);
   permdims([1 dim]) = permdims([dim 1]);
   sorted_c = permute(sort(permute(c, permdims)), permdims);
end

[Stephen23]

+1 very tidy solution.

Answer 2

[per isakson]

2015-12-18: Fixed a "typo". With R2013a.

Loop over all rows and concatenate

cac = arrayfun( @(jj) sort(x(jj,:)), (1:size(x,1)), 'uni', false )
sorted_x = cat( 1, cac{:} )

outputs

cac = 
    {1x2 cell}    {1x2 cell}    {1x2 cell}
sorted_x = 
    'apple'    'book'
    'dood'     'tood'
    'moon'     'soon'