Rearrange MATLAB table variables (Release 2016)

Question

I have a table in MATLAB with variable titles equal to:

titles = {'TZ_1', 'TZ_2', 'TZ_3', 'DATE'};

Is there any way to move change the data to have the DATE before TZ_1?

titles = {'DATE', 'TZ_1', 'TZ_2', 'TZ_3'};

I can see movevars in the 2022 version, but I am currently running the 2016 version.

Any help would be appreciated - I am relatively new to MATLAB.

Answer 1

You can do it by name

% Set up example data
t = table(1,2,3,4, 'VariableNames',{'TZ_1', 'TZ_2', 'TZ_3', 'DATE'})
% Specify the column ordering you want
titles = {'DATE', 'TZ_1', 'TZ_2', 'TZ_3'};
% Rearrange the table
t = t( :, titles );

You can of course do this without the intermediate variable

t = t( :, {'DATE', 'TZ_1', 'TZ_2', 'TZ_3'});

Extension:

If you just know you want 'DATE' at the front regardless where it currently is in the order, you could do something like

titles = [{'DATE'}, setdiff(t.Properties.VariableNames, {'DATE'}, 'stable')];
t = t( :, titles );

Answer 2

Yes, you can do this with indexing. (If you look at the implementation of movevars, that is exactly what it does).

>> t = table(1,2,3,4, 'VariableNames',{'TZ_1', 'TZ_2', 'TZ_3', 'DATE'})
t =
  1×4 table
    TZ_1    TZ_2    TZ_3    DATE
    ____    ____    ____    ____
     1       2       3       4  
>> t(:,[4, 1:3])
ans =
  1×4 table
    DATE    TZ_1    TZ_2    TZ_3
    ____    ____    ____    ____
     4       1       2       3