Convert matrix of char to numbers

I have a big m*n matrix with char elements (the elements are natural numbers). I want to change it to a matrix to work with numbers. Using for-loop and str2num works, but I want to avoid for-loop and a fast and efficient way.

[m,n]=size(Matrix);
for i=1:n
    str2num(Matrix(:,i));
end

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

Can you post a sample of your data?

Answer 1

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

v=['123';'456';'789';'456']
[n,m]=size(v)
w=str2double(mat2cell(v',ones(m,1),n))

[Shima Asaadi]

Thank you for reply.

The matrix is like :

'2'  '3'  '1'
'4'  '3'  '7'
'2'  '4'  '1'

But the code does not work.Should I first convert to cell arrays and then to numbers?

Thanks

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

Your matrix is already a cell array. What is the expected result? To make things clear, how did you get this matrix?

v={'2'  '3'  '1'
'4'  '3'  '7'
'2'  '4'  '1'}

or

v=[ '231'
    '437'
    '241']

[Shima Asaadi]

Well, it is like the first one. 3 elements in each row.

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

v={'2'  '3'  '1'
'4'  '3'  '7'
'2'  '4'  '1'}
out=str2double(arrayfun(@(x) strjoin(v(:,x),''),1:size(v,2),'un',0))

[Shima Asaadi]

But I need to look at this cell array as a matrix. I mean that for example v(2,2)=3 , v(2,3)=7, v(3,3)=1 , ...

Thanks

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

v={'2'  '3'  '1'
'4'  '3'  '7'
'2'  '4'  '1'}
out=str2double(v)