Copy cells a variable number of times

Hi all

i have this code

for i=1:length(a)
 C(i)=repmat(b(i),1,a(i))
end

where b is a cell array

16x5 double
16x5 double
13x5 double

and a is an array

[101,17,1]

i want to copy the first cell 101 times, the second cell, 17 times and last cell only one time, but using the upper code i can't do that...any idea?

Thank you for the help!!

Regards

[Stephen23]

"i want to copy the first cell 101 times, the second cell, 17 times and last cell only one time"

Do you want to repmat the cell itself, or the array in the cell?

[EldaEbrithil]

Hi Stephen

the cell and the matrix inside it

[Stephen23]

"the cell and the matrix inside it"

That seems very unusual. So given this cell array:

C = {X,Y,Z}

you want to repmat both the cells and the matrices to get this:

{[X,X,X...X],[X,X,X,...X],...,[X,X,X,...X],[Y,Y,Y,...Y],[Y,Y,Y,...Y],...,[Y,Y,Y,...Y],[Z,Z,Z,...,Z],...,[Z,Z,Z,...Z]}

I would have expected either of these:

{X,X,...,X,Y,Y,...Y,Z,Z,...Z} % repmat the cells themselves
{[X,X,..,X],[Y,Y,...,Y],[Z,Z,...,Z]} % repmat the arrays inside the cells

[EldaEbrithil]

Yes in pratical terms i want something like that:

16x5 double
16x5 double
.
.(99 times)
.

16x5 double
16x5 double
.
.(15 times)
.

13x5 double 

Answer 1

[David Hill]

for i=1:length(a)
 C{i}=repmat(b{i},1,a(i));
end

[EldaEbrithil]

Hi David thank you for the help

perhaps I have badly explained myself , sorry... the code works but it copies the matrix inside the cell, i would like to copy the cell as it is and stack them neatly

[EldaEbrithil]

In other words i want to expand the cell, from 3 cell to 119 cell

[David Hill]

count=1;
for i=1:length(a)
    for k=1:a(i)
        C{count}=b{i};
        count=count+1;
    end
end

[EldaEbrithil]

This is what i was looking for !!

Thank you so much David!!

Answer 2

[Steven Lord]

To replicate the cells you can use repmat or repelem depending on whether you want ABCABCABCABC... or AAAABBBBCCCC ... In other words, how do you want the replicates to be collated? Suitable for stapling into packets or suitable for making stacks of loose handouts for students to select from piles?

X = {1:3, 4:7, [8 9]}; % A is 1:3, B is 4:7, C is [8 9]
Y1 = repmat(X, [1 2]) % ABCABC 
Y2 = repelem(X, [2 3 4]) % AABBBCCCC

Or do you want to replicate the contents of the cells?

X2 = {repmat(1:3, [2 1]), repmat(4:7, [3 3]), repmat([8 9], 1, 4)}
% X2 contains a 2-by-3, a 3-by-12, and a 1-by-8