How to fill a blank cell with the value of the cell above it in a table?

Hello,

I am running a script that reads through a large excel file and creates a table. One of the columns in the file will sometimes have blank cells. The value should be the value that is above it, but this sheet is large and updated often, so it would be too much to manually update it each time.

This is the code I'm currently using that isn't working:

for j = 1:height(data)
    %Fill in blank data
    if isempty(data.Var1)
        data.Var1 = fillmissing(data.Var1,'previous');
    end
end

I attached the output that I'm getting. Instead of 0x0 char, it should be the value listed above.

Thank you!

Answer 1

[Matt J]

The only line of code you need is this one

data.Var1=fillmissing(data.Var1,'previous')

Get rid of the lines around it.

Var1={'ABC01';'';'ddddd';''}; Var2=(1:4)';

data=table(Var1,Var2)

data = 4x2 table
       Var1       Var2
    __________    ____

    {'ABC01' }     1  
    {0x0 char}     2  
    {'ddddd' }     3  
    {0x0 char}     4  

data.Var1=fillmissing(data.Var1,'previous')

data = 4x2 table
      Var1       Var2
    _________    ____

    {'ABC01'}     1  
    {'ABC01'}     2  
    {'ddddd'}     3  
    {'ddddd'}     4  

[KD]

wow one line change makes all the difference! thanks!!

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

    if isempty(data.Var1)

You are testing all of the Var1 component of data at the same time there, which does not make sense since you are inside a for loop.

Your code should just be

    data.Var1 = fillmissing(data.Var1, 'previous');

with nothing else -- no for loop.