get rid of empty spaces in cells containing strings

Hi everyone,

I have created a cell 62x1, cell_sample, which reads like this:

      '103'
      '114'
      ' 25'
      '  9'
      ' 13'
      '  8'
      ' 12'
      ' 26'

and so on.. till the last cell. The problem is that it always has 3 characters, so for a one digit number I am getting 2 spaces and the number, for a two digit number I'm getting one space and the number, etc. I want to remove the spaces to get sth like this:

    '103'
    '114'
    '25'
    '9'
    '13'
    '8'
    '12'
    '26'

The data is read from an excel sheet, piece of code:

sample=xlsread('screws.xlsx',1,'H2:H63')
Num_sample=num2str(sample)
cell_sample = cellstr(Num_sample)

[Image Analyst]

I like Azzi's answer best, but why are you converting it to strings? Wouldn't leaving the numbers as numbers be easier to use after that in your code? Why make it harder on yourself?

Answer 1

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

str={'103';'114';' 25';'  9';' 13';'  8';' 12';' 26'}
out=strtrim(str)

[Dommal]

Thank you! That's exactly what I need.

Answer 2

[the cyclist]

Here's one way:

cell_sample = regexprep(cell_sample,' ','')

Answer 3

[James Tursa]

Another (slower) way:

cell_sample = cellfun(@(x)x(x~=' '),cell_sample,'Uni',false)

Answer 4

[John BG]

Use

str2num

It trims any head tail blank space while at the same time converting fields to type double