Can I assign names to variables in a table column?

I am slowly teaching myself how to use matlab so I am a relatively new users. I need a little bit of help.

I have a data table that looks like this:

Position Total Impacts Impacts per Hour

______ ____________ ______________

1 1000 1.5

2 800 1.3

3 1500 1.7

The first column Position has numbers substituted in for text. The number 1 represents forwards, the number 2 represents midfielders, the number 3 represents defenders.

My question:

Is there a function that I can use where I can assign text to the number and replace the numbers with the the text counterpart so that my table looks like:

Position Total Impacts Impacts per Hour

______ ____________ ______________

Forward 1000 1.5

Midfielder 800 1.3

Defender 1500 1.7

It is not a huge deal as I can change the variables once I export to excel but it would save me some time.

Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

Try this:

Position = [1;2;3];
TotalImpacts = [1000; 800; 1500];
ImpactsPerHour = [1.5; 1.3; 1.7];
t = table(Position,TotalImpacts,ImpactsPerHour, 'VariableNames', {'Position','TotalImpacts','ImpactsPerHour'})

t = 3×3 table
    Position    TotalImpacts    ImpactsPerHour
    ________    ____________    ______________

       1            1000             1.5      
       2             800             1.3      
       3            1500             1.7      

Position2 = cell(height(t), 1);
for row = 1 : height(t)
    if t.Position(row) == 1
        Position2{row} = 'Forward';	
    elseif t.Position(row) == 2
        Position2{row} = 'Midfielder';
    elseif t.Position(row) == 3
        Position2{row} = 'Defender';
    end
end
t = table(Position2,TotalImpacts,ImpactsPerHour, 'VariableNames', {'Position','TotalImpacts','ImpactsPerHour'})

t = 3×3 table
       Position       TotalImpacts    ImpactsPerHour
    ______________    ____________    ______________

    {'Forward'   }        1000             1.5      
    {'Midfielder'}         800             1.3      
    {'Defender'  }        1500             1.7      

[Steven Lord]

I would proably use a categorical array instead.

rng default
Position = randi(3, 6, 1);
TotalImpacts = randi([800, 2000], 6, 1);
ImpactsPerHour = randi([10, 20], 6, 1)./10;
t = table(Position,TotalImpacts,ImpactsPerHour, ...
    'VariableNames', {'Position','TotalImpacts','ImpactsPerHour'})

t = 6×3 table
    Position    TotalImpacts    ImpactsPerHour
    ________    ____________    ______________

       3            1134               2      
       3            1456             1.5      
       1            1949             1.8      
       3            1958             1.1      
       2             989             1.4      
       1            1965               2      

t.PositionCat = discretize(t.Position, 1:4, 'categorical', ...
    {'Forward', 'Midfielder', 'Defender'})

t = 6×4 table
    Position    TotalImpacts    ImpactsPerHour    PositionCat
    ________    ____________    ______________    ___________

       3            1134               2          Defender   
       3            1456             1.5          Defender   
       1            1949             1.8          Forward    
       3            1958             1.1          Defender   
       2             989             1.4          Midfielder 
       1            1965               2          Forward    

% Use the categorical variable
t(t.PositionCat == 'Forward', :)

ans = 2×4 table
    Position    TotalImpacts    ImpactsPerHour    PositionCat
    ________    ____________    ______________    ___________

       1            1949             1.8            Forward  
       1            1965               2            Forward  

[Rebecca Kenny]

Amazing! Thank you both not only for you answers but for you quick reply. Both of your solutions work well, though adding the categorical array worked the best for my needs. Thank you!!