How to obtain a numeric vector with the position of elements of an array regarding another array?

I have many pairs of arrays (one is the reference and other a with the same elements but with different position) and I need a numeric vector with the position of the elements in the array.

For example, this will be my references:

 ref1={'a' 'b' 'c'};
 ref2={'a' 'c' 'c' 'c' 'b'};
 ref3={'b' 'b' 'c' 'a'};
 ref4={'a' 'b' 'c' 'd'};

and this the same arrays but sorted randomly

 messy1={'b' 'a' 'c'};
 messy2={'c' 'c' 'c' 'b' 'a'};
 messy3={'c' 'a' 'b' 'b'};
 messy4={'a' 'b' 'c' 'd'};

I would like to obtain something like this:

 positionVector1=[2 1 3];
 positionVector2=[2 3 4 5 1];
 positionVector3=[3 4 1 2];
 positionVector4=[1 2 3 4];

the previous examples were just the general idea but the arrays from which I need a numeric vector are like this:

 ref={'10fthf[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'atp[m]'};
 messy={'10fthf[m]'    'atp[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'};
 positionVector=[1 6 2 3 4 5];

Could you help me with this, thanks in advance!

note: the repeated elements are always together but I need them with a different value in the vector

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

Creating numbered variables is not a good code design decision, so the first thing we should do is store that data in nested cell arrays:

C = {{'a' 'b' 'c'};
    {'a' 'c' 'c' 'c' 'b'};
    {'b' 'b' 'c' 'a'};
    {'a' 'b' 'c' 'd'}};
D = {{'b' 'a' 'c'};
    {'c' 'c' 'c' 'b' 'a'};
    {'c' 'a' 'b' 'b'};
    {'a' 'b' 'c' 'd'}};
[~,idc] = cellfun(@sort,C,'uni',0);
[~,idd] = cellfun(@sort,D,'uni',0);
[~,idd] = cellfun(@sort,idd,'uni',0);
idx = cellfun(@(c,d)c(d),idc,idd,'uni',0);

and tested:

>> idx{1}
ans =
   2   1   3
>> idx{2}
ans =
   2   3   4   5   1
>> idx{3}
ans =
   3   4   1   2
>> idx{4}
ans =
   1   2   3   4

[German Preciat Gonzalez]

It worked, but I gave bad examples... sorry about that, Now I update them

[Stephen23]

@German Preciat Gonzalez: Note that my answer is much simpler than the one that you accepted:

>> ref={'10fthf[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'atp[m]'};
>> messy={'10fthf[m]'    'atp[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'};
>> [~,idr] = sort(ref);
>> [~,idm] = sort(messy);
>> [~,idm] = sort(idm);
>> idr(idm)
ans =
   1   6   2   3   4   5

My answer is also four times faster (1000 iterations):

Elapsed time is 1.7631 seconds.    % KL's code
Elapsed time is 0.448025 seconds.  % my code

Answer 2

[KL]

in = cellfun(@strcmp, repmat(ref1,numel(messy1),1), repmat(messy1',1,numel(ref1)))
[I,~]=find(in'>0);
I'

for repeating elements as in ref2,you need to get rid of the repeating indices as well,

[b,m1,n1] = unique(I','first');
[c1,d1] =sort(m1);
b = b(d1)

[German Preciat Gonzalez]

It is possible to do something like similar but for arrays with more than one characters?

[KL]

the above code for your new example as well.

[KL]

ref={'10fthf[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'atp[m]'};
 messy={'10fthf[m]'    'atp[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'    'glu_L[m]'};
 positionVector=[1 6 2 3 4 5]

   in = cellfun(@strcmp, repmat(ref,numel(messy),1), repmat(messy',1,numel(ref)));
   [I,~]=find(in'>0);
   I';

   [b,m1,n1] = unique(I','first');
   [c1,d1] =sort(m1);
   b = b(d1)

positionVector =

       1     6     2     3     4     5

b =

       1     6     2     3     4     5

[Stephen23]

See my answer for a simpler solution. My answer uses fewer commands and is four times faster than KL's answer (1000 iterations):

Elapsed time is 1.7631 seconds.    % KL's answer
Elapsed time is 0.448025 seconds.  % my answer

[KL]

Cool, I just wanted to stick to strcmp to compare ref and mess. I appreciate you took time to compare our codes