Retrieving Rows based on Columns

Suppose,

% double
  var1=[  1  1  2  4  5
          2  14  15  16  17];

% cell      
  var2={  1   5   6   7
          3   7   6   5
          4   2   5   9
          2   1   5   7};

How can I retrieve the rows in var2 (column 1) which corresponds to var1 (column 1).

Desired Result:

1 5 6 7
2 1 5 7

P/S: If it's not too troublesome, can you please include an explanation as well? I would like to learn from it.

Answer 1

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

c1=cell2mat(var2(:,1))
idx=cell2mat(arrayfun(@(x) find(ismember(c1,x)),var1(:,1),'un',0))
out=var2(idx,:)

[RDG]

Thanks!