creating dummies from a cell vector of string variables

 Dear all,

 I have this cell vector

 A={' ps1'
    ' ps1'
    ' ps1'
    ' ps1'
    ' ps2'
     ' ps2'
    ' ps2'
    ' ps2'
    ' ps3'
    ' ps3'
    ' ps3'
    ' ps3'
    ' ps4'
    ' ps4'
    ' ps4'}

I would like to construct dummies so as to have 1 for 'ps1', 2 for 'ps2' and so forth. Is there a way of doing that?. I tried str2double but it does not work for vectors as i get a vector of NaNs

    thanks

Answer 1

[Tom]

B=str2num(cellfun(@(x) x(end),A))

Answer 2

[Jan]

str2double fails due to the leading part ' ps'. So you could remove it:

A={' ps1'; ' ps1'; ' ps1'; ' ps1'; ' ps2'; ...
   ' ps2'; ' ps2'; ' ps2'; ' ps3'; ' ps3'; ...
   ' ps3'; ' ps3'; ' ps4'; ' ps4'; ' ps4'};
B   = strrep(A, ' ps', '');
Num = str2double(B);

But this is faster such that it reduces the CO2 production:

Str = sprintf('%s*', A{:});
Num = sscanf(Str, 'ps%d*');

Answer 3

[Andrei Bobrov]

[c c c] = unique(A)