Categorical2Num in a table

I have a table with categorical data in it. In order to calculate average etc. I need to convert it to num. Does anyone know the syntax?

[Walter Roberson]

YourTable.NewVariable = double(YourTable.CategoricalVariable)

It is possible to replace the variable but you have to build a table to do it because of the change of data type.

Are you sure you need numeric? findgroups will probably provide you with everything you need in practice.

Answer 1

[Peter Perkins]

If you are computing the average of a numeric variable using a cate3gorical variable to group your data, then you should not need to convert anything.

But your description sounds like you are trying to compute the average of a categorical variable. That's a contradiction in terms. It's like computing the mean of text data. Mode, sure (in which case you don't need to convert), median, yes, if it's ordinal. Mean? Something is wrong.