function [F] = aux_extract_numbers(A,delim)

%%% extracting individual numbers from string "A" with numerical entries 
%%% separated by delimiters "delim" made up of a SINGLE character; 
%%% multiple delimiters are possible, for example '73&58&49992&11';

%%% NOTE: the strings shouldn't have blank spaces and/or consecutive
%%% characters like "--", and should start and end with a number! See the
%%% example above

%%% output: vector "F" of the individual numbers

%
% Dmitry Yumashev, 15/04/2019
% Dmitry Yumashev, 14/06/2019
%

delim = string(delim); % making sure the delimiter is in the right format

% first, use string conversion to handle purely numeric entries
B = string(A);

% now, convert the string into character array, to be split into the individual
% characters later
C = char(B);

totalCharC=length(C);

% count the number of delimiters
k = 0;

for j=1:totalCharC

    if strcmp(C(j),delim) == 1

        k = k + 1;

    end

end

totalDelimC = k;

% the quantity of numbers separated by '&' or other delimeters
totalNumC = totalDelimC + 1; % assuming the input string starts and ends with a number


% extract the individual numbers into elements of a cell array

D = cell(1,totalNumC);

k = 0;
jOld = 1;

for j=1:totalCharC 

    if strcmp(C(j),delim) == 1

        k = k + 1; % counter
        jNew = j-1; % last character before the current '&'

        D{k} = C(jOld:jNew); 

        jOld = j+1; % update the old character position 

    end

end

% extracting the final number (not done in the loop above)
jNew = totalCharC;
D{totalNumC} = C(jOld:jNew);


% converting strings into numbers
F = str2double(D);

% closing the function
end