How to count values in a script?

Hi. I am writing a script in which agents (say 200 agents) make 3 decisions: A, B, and C. Now, I want to be able to find out how many As, Bs, and Cs are there. How do I do this? Thank you.

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

I would use the sum function.

[Aci]

Hi. Thank you for the answer. However, I don't want to know the sum of As, Bs, and Cs because that should equal to 200. I want the script to count it out for me, as the number of As, Bs, and Cs will vary with each iteration. I was wondering if the countcats function can help.

[Star Strider]

My pleasure.

If they are in a matrix, perhaps (Nx3) with a different columns for ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’ (which is likely how I would do it), then sum will sum each column (or row, if you ask it to). Without knowing how your data are organised, it’s difficult to provide an exact solution.

Answer 2

[Chad Greene]

You can indeed use sum if you design your script for it. I'm gonna simplify the problem and consider this case with three agents and two choices:

% Give each agent a number, 1 through 3:
agent = 1:3;

If Agent 1 chooses A and B, Agent 2 chooses A only and Agent 3 chooses B only:

A = [1 1 0]; 
B = [1 0 1];

What's the total number of agents who chose A?

sum(A) 
  = 2