Using values in an array to represent characters?

I have a vector x= [1:1:12]. Each value, from 1 to 12, should represent the corresponding months January to December. 1 is equal to January, 2 is equal to February, and so on. How would I do this, if possible? Also, if I were to create a new vector by selecting values from vector x, how would I display only the corresponding months. For example, my vector is M = [1 2 4 5 6] and I want it to display the months that correspond with those values.

Answer 1

[KL]

Use datetime to generate a vector of datetimes and then use month property,

dt = datetime([2017*ones(12,1) (1:12).' ones(12,1)]);
month_names = month(dt,'name');

now month_names has all your month names,

     12×1 cell array

      'January'
      'February'
      'March'
      'April'
      'May'
      'June'
      'July'
      'August'
      'September'
      'October'
      'November'
      'December'

Extract it just by indexing,

res = month_names([1 2 4 5 6])

res =

    5×1 cell array

      'January'
      'February'
      'April'
      'May'
      'June'