computing vectors with string and numbers (easy question)

Hi evreyone,

I have a vector of names(str vector) and i would like to associate a number to each name

For example evreytime that the name 'Andrea' came up in the first vectror in the second one it gives me back the number 3.

Thank you for your time!

[Stephen23]

"I have a vector of 12 names(str vector) and i would like to associate a number to each name (so from 1:12)."

That just sounds like the indices.

[Andrea Miceli]

I modifed the question, now it should be clearer.

Answer 1

[Paul Hoffrichter]

Here is code that keeps the indexing scheme based upon the order in which the names occur in your vector of strings.

>> S = ["Howard"    "Howard"    "joe"    "april"    "andrea"    "joe"    "andrea"    "Howard"]
S = 
  1×8 string array
    "Howard"    "Howard"    "joe"    "april"    "andrea"    "joe"    "andrea"    "Howard"
>> SUniq = unique(S, 'stable')
SUniq = 
  1×4 string array
    "Howard"    "joe"    "april"    "andrea"
>> [~, Locb] = ismember(S, SUniq)
Locb =
     1     1     2     3     4     2     4     1

Answer 2

[Paul Hoffrichter]

>> S = ["joe" "april" "andrea" "joe" "andrea"]
S = 
  1×5 string array
    "joe"    "april"    "andrea"    "joe"    "andrea"
>> SU = unique(S)
SU = 
  1×3 string array
    "andrea"    "april"    "joe"
>> [~,Locb] = ismember(S, SU)
Locb =
     3     2     1     3     1

Every time "joe" came up in S, it shows up as a 3 in Locb.

Every time "andrea" came up in S, it shows up as a 1 in Locb.

Every time "april" came up in S (only 1 time), it shows up as a 2 in Locb.