How do I remove the elements of one vector from another? - matlab

Question

I have a double value, A, which is
[1,4,7,6]
I also have B, which is an array that contains many more values. I have a new variable, C, which is essentially a double value of all these numbers (all of them in one cell, vs. five).
[1,4,7,6]
[2,6,9,12]
[3,1,17,13]
[5,7,13,19]
[1,5,9,15]
How do I remove the elements (not the actual values) from C? I want to end up with this.
[2,6,9,12,3,1,17,13,5,7,13,19,1,5,9,15]
How do I get this? I've used these commands:
C(A) = [];
and
C = C(setdiff(1:length(C),A));
The problem is that when I run that command, I get this instead of what I want.
[4,7,2,12,3,1,17,13,5,7,13,19,1,5,9,15]
Clearly that isn't the same as what I have. It's throwing off the rest of my results and I need to fix this specific issue.
Thanks in advance :)
EDIT:
So I figured out that it's spewing the CORRECT numbers out, just in the wrong order. I have to sort it in order for it to work correctly. This is a problem because it causes the next command to be non-functional because the ismember command has issues with the removal (I don't know why, I'm still working on it).

Answer 1

Double array case
If B is a double array, you can use setdiff with 'rows' and 'stable' options, like so -
C = reshape(setdiff(B,A,'rows','stable').',1,[])
With ismember, you can perform the same operation, like so -
C = reshape(B(~ismember(B,A,'rows'),:).',1,[])
You can also use a bsxfun approach as suggested by #Amro -
C = reshape(B(~all(bsxfun(#eq, B, A),2),:).',1,[])
Cell array case
If B is a cell array with number of elements in each cell equal to the number of elements in A, then you can firstly convert it to a double array - B = vertcat(B{:}) and then use either of the above mentioned tools.
Or you can use a cellfun based approach that avoids conversion to a double array, like so -
excl_rows = B(~cellfun(#(x1,x2) isequal(x1,x2), B, repmat({A},size(B,1),1)),:)
C = horzcat(excl_rows{:})
Or another cellfun based approach that avoids repmat -
exclB = B(~cellfun(#(x1) isequal(x1,A), B),:)
C = horzcat(exclB{:})
Example with explanation -
%// Inputs
A = [1,4,7,6]
B = {[1,4,7,6]
[2,6,9,12]
[3,1,17,13]
[5,7,13,19]
[1,5,9,15]}
%// Compare each cell of B with A for equality.
%// The output must be a binary array where one would be for cells that have
%// elements same as A and zero otherwise.
ind = cellfun(#(x1) isequal(x1,A), B)
%// Thus, ~ind would be a binary array where one would reperesent unequal
%// cells that are to be selected in B for the final output.
exclB = B(~ind)
%// exclB is still a cell array with the cells that are different from A.
%// So, concatenate the elements from exclB into a vector as requested.
C = horzcat(exclB{:})
Output -
A =
1 4 7 6
B =
[1x4 double]
[1x4 double]
[1x4 double]
[1x4 double]
[1x4 double]
ind =
1
0
0
0
0
exclB =
[1x4 double]
[1x4 double]
[1x4 double]
[1x4 double]
C =
2 6 9 12 3 1 17 13 5 7 13 19 1 5 9 15