I guess the following code could do the trick:

strs = {'HA' 'KU' 'LA' 'MA' 'TATA'}
ind=find(ismember(strs,'KU'))

This returns

ans = 
     2

How about this one-liner:

>> mixedCellArray = {'adpo' 2134  []; 0 [] 'daesad'; 'xxxxx' 'dp' 'dpdpd'};
>> index = cellfun(@(c) ischar(c) && ~isempty(strfind(c, 'dp')), mixedCellArray)

index =

  3×3 logical array

   1   0   0
   0   0   0
   0   1   1

You could get by without the ischar(c) && ..., but you will likely want to keep it there since strfind will implicitly convert any numeric values/arrays into their equivalent ASCII characters to do the comparison. That means you could get false positives, as in this example:

>> C = {65, 'A'; 'BAD' [66 65 68]}  % Note there's a vector in there

C =

  2×2 cell array

    [ 65]    'A'         
    'BAD'    [1×3 double]

>> index = cellfun(@(c) ~isempty(strfind(c, 'A')), C)  % Removed ischar(c) &&

index =

  2×2 logical array

   1   1                % They all match!
   1   1

It is not working as you expect because strfind allows for a partial string match. What you want is an exact match. You can do this using strcmp. Also, the input to strcmp can actually be a cell array of strings so you can use it the following way.

A = {'10';'10;20';'20';'10;20';'10';'10';'20'};
is10 = strcmp(A, '10');
%// 1  0  0  0  1  1  0

You could also use ismember to do the same thing.

is10 = ismember(A, '10');
%// 1  0  0  0  1  1  0

As a side note, most string functions (including strfind) can actually accept a cell array of strings as input. So in your initial post, the wrapping of strfind inside of cellfun is unnecessary.

Suppose C is your cell array. Then one way to do what you want would be this:

>> C(cellfun('isempty', C)) = {''};
>> logicalArray = ~cellfun('isempty', strfind(C, 'HA'))

strfind does not accept cell arrays of which some values are not strings. Your cell array happens to have empty values, but of the wrong kind -- [] is double, not char. That is the reason you get that error.

So, I simply replace every empty double with the empty char (''), and then use strfind.

Another way around this problem:

>> logicalArray = cellfun(@(x)~isempty(strfind(x,'HA')), C)

but that is a lot slower.

Here's a lovely one-liner:

strings = regexprep(strings, excludedStrings, '');

Breakdown:

• All the words/characters to search for are passed on to regexprep
• This function replaces every occurrence of any word/character in the set given above, with the empty string ('').

It will automatically repeat this action on all elements in the cell-array string.

If you also wish to remove any empty strings from the cell string, do this after the command above:

strings = strings(~cellfun('isempty', strings));

The simplest way to do this (all-versions compatible) would be to just use strcmp, which can accept cell arrays and does a "string compare".

One liner

indexresult = find(strcmp(C(:,1), 'name') & strcmp(C(:,3), '23'));
% indexresult = [1; 4; 6];

Explanation

% Get logical array of rows where first column is 'name'
logicalname = strcmp(C(:,1), 'name');
% Get logical array of rows where third column is '23'
logical23 = strcmp(C(:,3), '23');
% Get logical array where both of the above are true, using and (&)
logicalname23 = strcmp(C(:,1), 'name') & strcmp(C(:,3), '23');
% Get indices from logical array using find
indexresult = find(strcmp(C(:,1), 'name') & strcmp(C(:,3), '23'));
% If you wanted a row vector instead of column vector, just transpose too
indexresult = find(strcmp(C(:,1), 'name') & strcmp(C(:,3), '23')).';

If you want to be case insensitive (matching 'name', 'NAME', 'Name', ...) then use strcmpi instead of strcmp.