Assign different strings in a cell array with a number

I have a cell array that contains a lot of strings, where sometimes the string is repeated throughout the array. I want to assign a number to the different strings. So for example in my cell array I have names:

Harry

Jenny

Harry

Ben

So in this case Harry would be assigned the number 1 Jenny the number 2 and Ben the number 3. The probelm is that my cell array contains over a million names so I do not know what all of them are. Is there a way to create a code such that whenever the code comes across a new name it assigns it a number?

Thanks!

Answer 1

[Ingrid]

maybe you could try using unique on the cell array so that you know all possible names. Then you could assign numbers to these names

lookupTable = unique({'a','b','c','d','a','b','e'});

then use this table as a look up to assign numbers according to the names. For more info you can look here http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/2015-find-index-of-cells-containing-my-string