Replace array elements with another small array using indexing

Hi everyone,how to replace array with another small array using indexing

a=[1 1 4 1 3 3 1 1 1 3 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0];
%replace 1 4 1 with 0 3 0 and 3 4 1 with 2  and b=b(b~=0); to get a new vector
b=[1 3 3 3 1 1 1 2];

Thank you.

[Matt J]

%replace 1 4 1 with 0 3 0

The output you've shown has 1 4 1 replaced with 3, not with 0 3 0.

[TEJAS PHUTANE]

I want to do it both ways, replace with 3 or with 0 3 0 and use b=b(b~=0); to get a new array without 0.

[TEJAS PHUTANE]

%my code:
path=[1 1 4 1 3 3 1 1 1 3 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0];
p=path;
n=length(p);
for i=1;i=n-3;i=i+1;
    if ( p(i)==1 && p(i+1)==4 && p(i+2)==1)
        p(i:i+2)= [0 3 0];
    end
end
 p=p(p~=0);       

still not getting desired output

Answer 1

[Matt J]

 b=strrep(  strrep(a,[1 4 1],3)    ,[3 4 1],2)

[TEJAS PHUTANE]

this actually works but a warning occurs:Inputs must be character vectors, cell arrays of character vectors, or string arrays.

[TEJAS PHUTANE]

if instead of integers i have character vector like

path=["L" "L" "U" "L" "S" "S" "L" "L" "L" "S" "U" "L" "0" "0" "0" "0" "0" "0" "0" "0"];

how can i get shortest path (for line maze) eg: replace L U L with S and S U L with R.

shortpath=["L" "S" "S" "S" "L" "L" "L" "R"];