How can i replace a string to a numeric value in a specific column of an array ?

I have a data set od cancer diagnosis and the data has a column of strings B and M for benign and malignant cancer cells(for 'n' no.of patients). I want to replace the letters with 0s and 1s. Is there a function in matlab to do this replacing? If no can someone help with the code. Would be much appreciated!

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

I am not certain if ‘string’ refers to character vectors or string variables.

Try this —

column = ['M';'B';'M';'M';'B';'B']

column = 6×1 char array
    'M'
    'B'
    'M'
    'M'
    'B'
    'B'

g = findgroups(column)-1

g = 6×1

1 0 1 1 0 0

.