Remove "( )" from string words

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Isay
Isay on 18 Oct 2014
Commented: Jan on 19 Oct 2014

Hi I need to Remove "()" from any word in DataBase.

My Database(cell) have string words such as:

'NEW' 'May' '(AFP)' 'US' 'prosecutors' 'on' 'Friday' 'unveiled' 'indictment' 'including' 'charges' 'of' 'murder' 'and' 'loan' 'sharking' 'against' . . . .

So, I need to Remove "(" and ")" from (AFP). because My word should be : AFP

Accepted Answer

Robert Cumming
Robert Cumming on 19 Oct 2014
regexp is very compact and powerful - however it can be a bit slow.
If speed is an issue a simple for loop and strrep can sometimes be faster:
db = { 'NEW' 'May' '(AFP)' 'US' 'prosecutors' 'on' };
pattern = '\(|)';
tic
newdb = regexprep(db, pattern, '');
toc
tic
loopDB = db;
for ii=1:length(db)
loopDB{ii} = strrep ( db{ii}, '(', '' );
loopDB{ii} = strrep ( loopDB{ii}, ')', '' );
end
toc
isequal ( newdb, loopDB )
Elapsed time is 0.002665 seconds.
Elapsed time is 0.000087 seconds.
ans =
1
  1 Comment
Jan
Jan on 19 Oct 2014
strrep operates on cell strings directly:
loopDB = strrep(db, '(', '');
loopDB = strrep(loopDB, ')', '');

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More Answers (1)

Alberto
Alberto on 19 Oct 2014
You should use regexprep to replace anything that matches with parenthesis with an empty string; the pattern that matches any parenthesis shoul be:
pattern = '(\(|\))';
Its necessary to scape ( or ) using \( or \). See the examples:
>> texto = '(AFP)';
regexprep(texto, '(\(|\))', '')
ans =
AFP
>> texto = {'(AFP)','(cro'};
regexprep(texto, '(\(|\))', '')
ans =
'AFP' 'cro'
  1 Comment
Guillaume
Guillaume on 19 Oct 2014
Note that you don't need to surround the alternation with brackets and you don't need to escape the closing bracket, so this simpler pattern would work just as well:
pattern = '\(|)';
newdb = regexprep(db, pattern, '');

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