MATLAB: extracting groups of columns into a submatrix? - matlab

Question

I have a data-set, in which I want to extract columns 1-3, 7-9, 13-15, all the way to the end of the matrix
As an example, I've used the standard magic function to create a matrix
A=magic(10)
A =
92 99 1 8 15 67 74 51 58 40
98 80 7 14 16 73 55 57 64 41
4 81 88 20 22 54 56 63 70 47
85 87 19 21 3 60 62 69 71 28
86 93 25 2 9 61 68 75 52 34
17 24 76 83 90 42 49 26 33 65
23 5 82 89 91 48 30 32 39 66
79 6 13 95 97 29 31 38 45 72
10 12 94 96 78 35 37 44 46 53
11 18 100 77 84 36 43 50 27 59
I know that I can extract single columns starting at 1, in intervals of 3 with the command:
Aex=a(:,1 : 3 : end)
Aex =
92 8 74 40
98 14 55 41
4 20 56 47
85 21 62 28
86 2 68 34
17 83 49 65
23 89 30 66
79 95 31 72
10 96 37 53
11 77 43 59
Say I want to extract groups of columns instead (e.g. column 1-3, 7-9 etc.).
Is there a way to do this without having to manually point out all the column numbers?
Thanks for your help!
Rasmus

Answer 1

Is this what you are looking for:
Aex = A(:,[1:3 7:9])
?

Answer 2

I am assuming that you would like the result all concatenated into another large matrix?
If that is the case, try this one on for size:
result = A(diag(0:2)*ones(3,floor((size(A,2) - 3)/6) + 1) + ...
ones(3,floor((size(A,2) - 3)/6) + 1)*diag(1:6:(size(A,2)-3)))
That could probably be shortened with some matrix math rules. You could also parameterize the values so that it can be modified to do more than what this problem expects, (and also might make more sense),
a = 3;
b = 6;
result = A(diag(0:a-1)*ones(a,floor((size(A,2) - a)/b) + 1) + ...
ones(a,floor((size(A,2) - a)/b) + 1)*diag(1:b:(size(A,2)-a)))
where a is the size of "group" (length([1 2 3]) = length([7 8 9]) = ... = 3), etc. and b is the column spacing ([1...7...13...] in your example)
If you would like them separated, I put them in cells here, but they can go to wherever you need:
a = 3;
b = 6;
results = {};
for Cols = 1:b:(size(A,2)-a)
results{end+1} = A(:, Cols:(Cols+2));
end
I didn't check the speed of either of these, but I think the first one may be faster. You may want to split it up into terms so it's more readable, I just did it to fit on a single line (which isn't always the best way of writing code).

Answer 3

The simple way to do this:
M = magic(10);
n = size(M,2)
idx = sort([1:3:n 2:3:n 3:3:n])
M(:,idx)
If however, the pattern of removal is simpler than the pattern of colums that you want to keep you could use this instead:
A = magic(10);
B = A;
B(:,4:3:end)=[];
B(:,4:3:end)=[]; %Yes 3x the same line of code.
B(:,4:3:end)=[];