comparing categorical arrays in terms of content

I have two categorical arrays A and B. I want to idenitfy

• common elements of A and B
• elements that are in one of them but not in both of them

[Matt Gaidica]

Try ismember

[alpedhuez]

Does setdiff work in this context? https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/39735-find-elements-in-one-array-not-in-another

[KALYAN ACHARJYA]

@Matt Gaidica provided the suffcient information, just use ismember, it is simple. Please refer MATLAB doc.

Answer 1

[Adam Danz]

ismember alone can answer the first point (common elements of A and B) but not the 2nd since it only tests whether elements of A are in B but not whether elements of B are in A. For example,

A = categorical({'a' 'b' 'c' 'e'}');
B = categorical({'a' 'b' 'c' 'd'}');
[LIA,LOCB] = ismember(A,B)

LIA = 4x1 logical array
   1
   1
   1
   0

LOCB = 4×1

1 2 3 0

setxor can show their differences.

[C,~,~] = setxor(A,B)

C = 2×1 categorical array
     e 
     d 

[alpedhuez]

What is the difference from setdiff?

[Adam Danz]

Check out the first sentence of the documentation for each function. If that's not clear I'd be happy to explain.

You could also experiment to see what the differences are .

A = categorical({'a' 'b' 'c' 'e'}');
B = categorical({'a' 'b' 'c' 'd'}');

setdiff(A,B)

ans = categorical
     e 

setdiff(B,A)

ans = categorical
     d 

setxor(A,B)

ans = 2×1 categorical array
     e 
     d 

setxor(B,A)

ans = 2×1 categorical array
     d 
     e 

[alpedhuez]

Thank you.