How to delete duplicates and replace values in an array?

Hey, I'm a little stumped on my personal project. I'm trying to have MatLab check a list of ingredients, delete duplicates, and rewrite the remaining ingredient to show how many times its been mentioned. Here's an example:

[("White Onion"),("Potato"),("White Onion"),("Fruit")] -> [("2x White Onion"),("Potato"),("Fruit")]

I know unique() is a command I could use, but how would I rewrite that individual value?

Answer 1

[Simon Chan]

Create a table and use function groupsummary

Item=["White Onion";"Potato";"White Onion";"Fruit"];
T=table(Item,'VariableNames',{'Ingredients'});
G = groupsummary(T,"Ingredients","sum")

Result:

G =
  3×2 table
     Ingredients     GroupCount
    _____________    __________
    "Fruit"              1     
    "Potato"             1     
    "White Onion"        2  

[Colin TaylorMays]

Is this something I can print into a txt file?

[Cris LaPierre]

Yes. Look at writetable

I would remove the method 'sum', as it doesn't make sense with string data.

ingrT = table(["White Onion","Potato","White Onion","Fruit"]','VariableNames',"ingredients");
groupsummary(ingrT,"ingredients")

ans = 3×2 table
     ingredients     GroupCount
    _____________    __________

    "Fruit"              1     
    "Potato"             1     
    "White Onion"        2     

[Simon Chan]

Thanks Cris, forgot it is string data.

Use function writetable to put it in a text file

writetable(G,'result.txt')