How to split a cell array by finding certain cells

Say I have a cell that is something like

testCell = {'start', 1, 2, 3, 'start', 4, 5, 'start', 6, 7, 8, 9}

How can I split it into several separate cells so that I get something like

test1 = {'start', 1, 2, 3}
test2 = {'start', 4, 5}
test3 = {'start', 6, 7, 8, 9}

In the final program the length of the original cell, as well as the number of times 'start' appears isn't constant, and the data in between is sometimes numbers, sometimes strings, and occasionally has some empty cells (which can't be deleted)

Any help would be appreciated

Answer 1

[Matt J]

This is perhaps the closest thing to your request without incurring the problems discussed in this thread. In other words, instead of separate variables test1, test2, test3,... I've given you test{1}, test{2}, test{3}, ...

a=strcmp(testCell,'start');
z=cumsum(a);
N=sum(a);
test=cell(1,N);

for i=1:N, test{i}=testCell(z==i); end

[Stephen Liederbach]

Thanks, that should work

Answer 2

[Andrei Bobrov]

accumarray(cumsum(strcmp(testCell,'start'))',...
                                            (1:numel(testCell))',[],@(x){testCell(x)})