Convert character matrix to numeric matrix

Hello

I have this matrix:

A=['AB' 'AC';'AD' 'AE'];

I want to make each element of this words to have unique value of number. After that I want a code to transfer the numbers to the origin words.

I used this code:

A=['AB' 'AC';'AD' 'AE'];
A = double(A)
A = char(A)

The problem is that the output has the size 2*4 while it should be as the input 2*2 this due to that matlab deals with the letters not the words so it make each letter in separate column.

Please help me.

Thanks

[Stephen23]

This line

A=['AB' 'AC';'AD' 'AE'];

is equivalent to:

A=['ABAC';'ADAE'];

so your input is not 2x2 at all, it is actually a 2x4 char array.

You could use a 2x2 cell array or a string array, but then you would have to consider the possibility that each string/char vector would have different length (or do you exclude that possibility?) and so each numeric vector would also have a different length, and so would not be able to be concatenated into one matrix.

[Raed Alahmadi]

all element in my matrix have the same length so you can exclude that possibility

[Image Analyst]

Your final A is a character array yet you say you want a numerical array. Please state EXACTLY what you'd like to see as the output for the example you've given, so we know whether it needs to be numbers (like 1, 2, etc.), ASCII values (like 65, 66, etc.), or characters (like 'A', 'B', etc.).

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

If you really need a 2x2 array then one straightforward way would be to use a cell array:

>> A = {'AB','AC';'AD','AE'}
A =
  'AB'    'AC'
  'AD'    'AE'
>> B = cellfun(@double,A,'uni',0)
B =
   [65,66]    [65,67]
   [65,68]    [65,69]
>> C = cellfun(@char,B,'uni',0)
C =
  'AB'    'AC'
  'AD'    'AE'

[Raed Alahmadi]

Thanks for your help I used your method it is good but I face some other problems in my code so I change it slightly. Thanks

Answer 2

[Steven Lord]

If I understand your goal correctly, use the unique function.

sampleWords = {'apple', 'banana', 'cherry'};
n = numel(sampleWords);
data = sampleWords(randi(n, 1, 10))

[uniqueWords, generateUniqueWordsFromData, generateDataFromUniqueWords] = unique(data);
data2 = uniqueWords(generateDataFromUniqueWords)
isequal(data, data2)

[Raed Alahmadi]

Thanks for your help I used other method to do it but I think I will need also your code in my code. thanks a lot