Convert String Headers to Numbers

I am working on a program where multiple x,y,z coordinates are identified within a matrix. I am bringing in an ASCII file with one header that has 'X','Y', and 'Z' over and over again throughout multiple columns. I am wondering how to go in and replace each 'X' with a 1, each 'Y' with a 2, and each 'Z' with a 3 to better manipulate the data through a series of for loops. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[James Tursa]

Please post a small example of the exact format the data is in. Do you have cell arrays, or what?

Answer 1

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

% If your matrix looks like

M=[1 2 3 4 5 6;0 0 0 1 1 1;2 1 2 0 1 0]
out=permute(reshape(M',size(M,1),3,[]),[2 1 3])