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matlabcell-array

Matlab - sort cell array of objects by property

Suppose I had a class named Foo, with a datenum property named DateTime. If I had a cell array collection of Foo objects, how would I sort that according to each object's DateTime property?

I have seen references to overloading the sort method and working with arrays of objects, however I'm using a cell array due to dynamic sizing and those instructions aren't holding up. Anybody got some suggestions? Cheers

Solution

  • The simplest approach is to extract the time-values into a vector, sort that, and use the new order to sort the original array.

    %# extract DateTime from the cell array fooCell
dateTime = cellfun(@(x)x.DateTime, fooCell);

[~,sortIdx] = sort(dateTime);

%# reorder fooCell
fooCell = fooCell(sortIdx);