Number to string within numeric matrix

I have numbers (1-20) which correspond to a city. I want to convert each number to a string to more easily read the city. For example: 1 = 'Atlanta', 2='Boston', etc. I have the data grouped in cell arrays based on a specific column, but also have the data in a 425x15 matrix (before grouping). Is it possible to replace the city numbers with city names? Thanks.

[Tyler Smith]

Thanks for all the help! I ended up using a combination of your answers. I used a categorical and turned it into a table, then turned my double into a table so I could horzcat and visualize the cities next to their respective data.

Answer 1

[dbmn]

have you tried using a categorical?

categorical([1 2 1 1 2 2], [1,2], {'Atlanta'; 'Boston'})
ans = 

     Atlanta      Boston      Atlanta      Atlanta      Boston      Boston 

Answer 2

[Matthias Walle]

Hi,

create a new class file

classdef city < uint32
   enumeration
      Atlanta (1)
      Boston (2)
      Whatever (3)
      andsoon (4)
   end
end

then you can use

city(1)

for example to get Atlanta

I hope this works for you

[Tyler Smith]

When I use this, it simply returns a 1 for Atlanta, 2 for Boston, and so on (which I already have). I need it to return the names instead of the numbers. Perhaps I am using it incorrectly.

[lenny006]

Thank you very much. This has helped me indeed, Matthias Walle

Answer 3

[Steven Lord]

You can't store both numbers and characters in a numeric array or a char array without conversion.

A = ones(2) % A is a double array
A(4) = 'A' % double('A') is 65, so A will be [1 1; 1 65]

B = 'ABCDE' % B is a char array
B(5) = 90 % char(90) is 'Z' so B will be 'ABCDZ'

You could use a cell array or a table to store data of both types.

C = {ones(5), 'abracadabra'}

x = [1; 3; 6; 10];
y = {'Amherst'; 'Boston'; 'Cambridge'; 'Easthampton'};
ind = [1 1 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 4]
D = y(ind)

E = table(x, y)

Answer 4

[Jan]

You can use the city numbers as indices:

Names = {'Atlanta', 'Boston', 'Chicago'};
Data  = [1, 3.14;  3, 7.07;  2, 2.71];
fprintf(%s\n', Names{Data(:, 1)})