MATLAB: Define a name of the variable using the value of other variable

MATLAB

Suppise I have data
Month Day Visitors
----------------------------
January 1 100
January 7 50
February 1 400
February 3 200
I want to create a variable that is a proxy for months such as
Month Day Visitors proxy_January proxy_February
------------------------------------------------
January 1 100      1             0
January 7 50       1             0
February 1 400     0             1
February 3 200     0             1
One way to do this is to define variables one by one for each month.
But I would like to know how I can let Matlab do this automatically.
I start with 
set_of_month=unique(T.Month)
that will give me the set of months. Then I can iterate over the set of months.
But how can I define a variable using set_of_months? I like to do something like
for i=1:length(set_of_states)
    for j=1:height(T)
        if T.Month(j)=set_of_month(i)
            T.set_of_month(i)=1
        else
            T.set_of_month(i)=0
        end
    end
end
Please advise.

Best Answer

Please let me know if I understood correctly your question.
Month={'January'; 'January'; 'February'; 'February'};
set_of_month=unique(Month);
% Add a matrix of zeros to host the dummy variables
dum=zeros(length(Month),length(set_of_month));
T=[table(Month) array2table(dum)];
% Add the labels
T.Properties.VariableNames(2:end)=set_of_month;
% Add the ones in the corresponding position
 for i=1:length(set_of_month)
    for j=1:height(T)
        if strcmp(T.Month{j},set_of_month{i})
            T{j,i+1}=1;
        end
    end
 end
 
 disp(T)
%       Month        February    January
%     ____________    ________    _______
% 
%     {'January' }       0           1   

%     {'January' }       0           1   
%     {'February'}       1           0   

%     {'February'}       1           0
Related Question