MATLAB: Match values of cells to numbers

cellsMATLAB

Hello,
I have the following cell
cell =
6×6 cell array
{' A'} {'B' } {0×0 double} {0×0 double} {0×0 double} {0×0 double}
{' A'} {0×0 double} {0×0 double} {0×0 double} {0×0 double} {0×0 double}
{' A'} {0×0 double} {0×0 double} {0×0 double} {0×0 double} {0×0 double}
{' A'} {0×0 double} {0×0 double} {0×0 double} {0×0 double} {0×0 double}
{' A'} {'D' } {0×0 double} {0×0 double} {0×0 double} {0×0 double}
{' A'} {'B' } {'C' } {0×0 double} {0×0 double} {0×0 double}
The characters 'A', 'B, 'C' and 'D' and 'E' are stored in a cell called name
name =
5×1 cell array
{'A'}
{'B'}
{'C'}
{'D'}
{'E'}
And to each letter, A, B, C , D and E I assign a number, 1 for A, 2 for B, 3 for C , 4 for D and 5 for E. I would like to create a matrix such as
mat =
1 2 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
1 4 0 0 0 0
1 2 3 0 0 0
So far what I do is use strfind for each value of cell to see if it finds name{1}, name{2}, name{3} etc
for i=1:6
for j=1:6
for k=1:5
idk1=strfind(cell{i,j},name{k});
if isempty(idk1)
mat(i,j,k)=0;
else
mat(i,j,k)=idk1;
end
end
end
end
result=zeros(6,6);
for i=1:KK
result(logical(ire(:,:,i)))=i;
end
Is there a simpler way to do this? This is just an exemple but I'll have cells with over 1000 rows and columns and I'd like to avoid checking each value individually.
Thanks!

Best Answer

% Fake data:
C = cell(6,6);
C(:,1) = {'A'};
C([1,6],2) = {'B'};
C(6,3) = {'C'};
C(5,2) = {'D'};
V = {'A','B','C','D','E'};
% Use ISMEMBER:
X = cellfun(@ischar,C);
M = zeros(size(C));
[~,Z] = ismember(C(X),V)
M(X) = Z
Which gives:
M =
1 2 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0 0
1 0 0 0 0 0
1 4 0 0 0 0
1 2 3 0 0 0