It is not possible. You'll have to leave it as a cell array. For a table, all columns must have a unique variable name. With a cell array, you can have anything in any cell, so you could put those into the first row:
% Make sample cell array
ca = cell(30, 42);
for k = 1 : numel(ca)
ca{k} = randi(9, 1, 2);
end
% Set up the first batch of variable names.
variableNames = {'first','second','third','fourth','fifth','sixth','seventh'};
% Find out how many copies of this we can replicate to fill up the top row.
numCopies = int32(size(ca, 2) / length(variableNames)) % This is 6 for this particular case.
% Now replicate variable names across the cell array.
variableNames = repmat(variableNames, [1, numCopies]); % This is 42 long for this particular case.
% Now stuff variableNames into the first row of the cell array.
ca(1, 1:length(variableNames)) = variableNames
% tbl = cell2table(ca, 'VariableNames', variableNames) % NOT POSSIBLE!
However, if you're willing to have unique variable names, like with a "set number" appended to those words you have, then you could do it like this:
% Make sample cell array
ca = cell(30, 42);
for k = 1 : numel(ca)
ca{k} = randi(9, 1, 2);
end
% Replicate variable names across the cell array.
theNumbers = {'first','second','third','fourth','fifth','sixth','seventh'};
setNumber = 1;
for k = 1 : size(ca, 2)
setNumber = floor((k-1) / 7) + 1;
n = mod(k-1, 7) + 1;
variableNames{k} = sprintf('%s_%d', theNumbers{n}, setNumber);
fprintf('Variable name for column %d is %s\n', k, variableNames{k});
end
% Now make these the variable names.
tbl = cell2table(ca, 'VariableNames', variableNames)
