replacing blank values in a single column cell array with the previous value

basically i have a list of values in a cell array.

A =

'-2.0372681e-10'

'0'

'-1.1641532e-10'

'-2.910383e-11'

'&nbsp'

'&nbsp'

'-1.45579e-11'

'0'

'&nbsp'

'2.9103759e-11'

'&nbsp'

'1.455188e-11'

'-2.910383e-11'

'7.2759396e-11'

'-1.45579e-11'

'2.9103759e-11'

'-4.3655746e-11'

'8.7311276e-11'

I want all the blanks to be filled with whatever the previous cell value is

[Sean de Wolski]

What do you want to do if the first entry is blank?

Answer 1

[Andy]

Pending the answer to Sean de's comment, I will assume the first entry is not blank:

for ix=2:length(A)
  if isempty(A{ix})
    A{ix} = A{ix-1};
  end
end

EDIT: As per Sean de's suggestion, the for loop now starts at 2. Michael, you may have to adjust this if the first element is allowed to be blank. (The code will not cause an error, but the result will not be what you intended.)

[Sean de Wolski]

This is probably just as good as any vectorized solution since we're dealing with cell arrays. +1!