function v = index2label (ca, indexfile)

% INDEX2LABEL converts a cell array to a vector of indices using an index file
% 
% ca is a Mx1 cell array
% indexfile has is a file with M nonempty lines that dont start with a %
%   Each such line is of the form 
%     lab ind
%   where lab is some string/number without spaces and ind is a number.
%   No lab appears twice.
% 
% v is a Mx1 vector with v(i) having an integer corresponding to ca{i}
%   ca{i} and v(i) are on the same line of indexfile.

indices = textread (indexfile, '%s', 'commentstyle', 'matlab', 'headerlines',0, 'delimiter', '\n' );
ind_lab = {};
ind_num = [];
for i = 1 : length (indices)
  a = strread (indices{i},'%s','delimiter',' ');
  ind_lab{i} = a{1};
  ind_num(i) = str2num(a{2});
end

L = length(ca);
v = zeros(L,1);
for i = 1 : L
  f = findincell (ind_lab,  ca{i});
  if f > 0
    v(i) = ind_num(f);
  end
end