NOTE: This is the eighth in my series of “10 things I wish I had known when I started using MATLAB”.

MATLAB has a wide variety of variable types available, but one that took me an embarassingly long time to learn about and appreciate is the cell array.

The cell array is one of the most flexible ways to store data because it can contain data of different types. So, a cell array could contain a text string, a number, a matrix, and even another cell array!

Here’s an example of a cell array:

cell_array = {"Douglas", 48, [1,0;0,1]};

You can address elements of a cell array numerically by their position. For example, cell_array{1} returns "Douglas".

Note the use of “{ }” brackets denoting the cell array and distinguishing it from regular arrays (which are defined using “[ ]” brackets and are referenced using “( )” brackets).

Now, to be 100% correct, you can use “( )” to address cells - you’ll just get a subset of the cell array back, not the values of those elements in the cell array. Confusing? Here’s another example: if I type cell_array(1) I get {"Douglas"} back. See how what was returned was a cell array, itself?

Read more about cell arrays in the official MathWorks documentation.