celltonumeric.m

Take cell array data (such as from loadcell) and convert strings to categorical numeric form.

Converts string data to numeric form, via numeric references to string arrays. Numeric data is unchanged.

Usually used after loadcell.m and sometimes before datato1ofm.m
Helps make the loaded data more useful!

celltonumeric - convert cell to entirely numeric representation
function [newdata,contentlist] = celltonumeric(data,sharing);

DATA is the complete dataset. It is presumed that all the possible states are represented in the dataset. If not the data should be augmented with dummy data so that this is the case. Each column of DATA corresponds to a different attribute, and each row a different data item. Each attribute must be exclusively numeric or string.

NEWDATA is the output numeric dataset, which is the same size and DATA.

SHARING is an optional binary matrix representing the attribute sharing graph. Connected attributes are presumed to share the same attribute values. The default is no connection to other attributes (unit matrix)

CONTENTLIST is a cell array, with one term for each attribute. CONTENTLIST is empty for attributes which are numeric. For string attributes it gives the map of the corresponding string associated with each number in NEWDATA.