removing elements of cell array of strings

how would I write a loop that removes words depending on inputs.

say I have

'aam' 'aani' 'aardvark' 'aardwolf' 'aaron' 'aaronic' 'aaronical'

If I input a random letter say "r" I would like to remove all the words that contain the letter r which would be arrdvark aardwolf aaron aaronic aaronical which leaves aam aani. Then say I input a second random letter n which removes the words with n so it would remove aani which leaves the final word aam

Thanks

Answer 1

[per isakson]

One without an explicit loop

random_letter = 'r';
word_list = {'aam','aani','aardvark','aardwolf','aaron','aaronic','aaronical'};
has_r = not( cellfun( @isempty, regexp( word_list, random_letter ) ) );
word_list( has_r ) = []

outputs

word_list = 
    'aam'    'aani

and another with a loop

random_letter = 'r';
word_list = {'aam','aani','aardvark','aardwolf','aaron','aaronic','aaronical'};
has_r = false( 1, length( word_list ) );

for jj = 1 : length( word_list )
    has_r(jj) = not( isempty( regexp( word_list{jj}, random_letter, 'once' )  ) ); 
end
word_list( has_r ) = []

which also outputs

word_list = 
    'aam'    'aani