how to initialize table with a certain number of rows in matlab

main.m
% define the number of rows
num_rows = 5;

% create a cell array of empty arrays
empty_cells = cell(num_rows, 1);
empty_cells(:) = {[]};

% create the table with the empty cells
my_table = table(empty_cells{:});
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main.m
% add a new column with some data
my_table.new_column = [1;2;3;4;5];

% fill in some cells in the first column
my_table{1,1} = 'some text';
my_table{3,1} = 42;
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