How to shuffle the rows in a cell array - matlab

Question

I have a cell array with x columns, each with a yx1 cell. I would like to randomize the "rows" within the columns. That is, for each yx1 cell with elements a_1, a_2, ... a_y, I would like to apply the same permutation to the indices of a_i.
I've got a function that does this,
function[Oarray] = shuffleCellArray(Iarray);
len = length(Iarray{1});
width = length(Iarray);
perm = randperm(len);
Oarray=cell(width, 0);
for i=1:width;
for j=1:len;
Oarray{i}{j}=Iarray{i}{perm(j)};
end;
end;
but as you can see it's a bit ugly. Is there a more natural way to do this?
I realize that I'm probably using the wrong data type, but for legacy reasons I'd like to avoid switching. But, if the answer is "switch" then I guess that's the answer.

Answer 1

I'm assuming you have a cell array of column vectors, such as
Iarray = {(1:5).' (10:10:50).' (100:100:500).'};
In that case, you could do it this way:
ind = randperm(numel(Iarray{1})); %// random permutation
Oarray = cellfun(#(x) x(ind), Iarray, 'UniformOutput', 0); %// apply that permutation
%// to each "column"
Or converting to an intermediate matrix and then back to a cell array:
ind = randperm(numel(Iarray{1})); %// random permutation
x = cat(2,Iarray{:}); %// convert to matrix
Oarray = mat2cell(x(ind,:), size(x,1), ones(1,size(x,2))); %// apply permutation to rows
%// and convert back