How to apply efficient if-else statements in a big data cell array

I have a cell array of 3 columns. Based on the different joint values of 2nd and 3rd columns, I would like to assign a number to the values of first column. for example:

a  x z
b  y z
c  x y
d  y z

for x&z I assign 1 to a, for y&z I assign 2 to b and d, for x&y I assign 3 to c. Well, I can do it within a for-loop and some if-else statements. But the document is too big and this is a bit slow. Does anyone know about an efficient and fast way to do it so?

Many thank, Shima

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

can you explain with a small example?

Answer 1

[Jos (10584)]

It is a cell array, but each cell has a single number? Then you might be better of converting it to numbers first:

N = cell2mat(C) ;
N(N(:,2)==x & N(:,3)==z, 1) = 1 ;
N(N(:,2)==y & N(:,3)==z, 1) = 2 ;
N(N(:,2)==x & N(:,3)==y, 1) = 3 ;