Importing text file data?

Hello everyone,

I have written a function that imports .txt files and removes the 5 header lines. Right now the function only reads .txt files with 6 columns of data. I am trying to make this file more robust, so that it can read .txt files with any number of data columns up to say 12. I am not sure how to appproach this and was looking for some help in doing so. Here is my function:

function[data]=Load_Data(filename,strain_command_data)

FID=fopen(filename);
data=textscan(FID,%f%f%f%f%f%f','HeaderLines',5,'CollectOutput',1);
fclose(FID);
data=data{1}
rows_remove=find(data(:,strain_command_data)==0);
if (~isempty(rows_remove)),
data=data(1:rows_remove(1)-1,:);
end
 end

Any help would be great.

[per isakson]

Did you search the File Exchange for ideas?

Answer 1

[Cedric]

What part are you not able to make more versatile?

If you know a priori the number of columns, you can make the following changes

 function data = Load_Data( filename, strain_command_data, nCol )
    if nargin < 3
       nCol = 5 ;           % Default.
    end
    formatSpec = repmat( '%f', 1, nCol ) ;
    FID = fopen( filename ) ;
    data = textscan( FID, formatSpec, 'HeaderLines', 5, 'CollectOutput', 1 ) ;
    .. etc.
 end

If you don't know a priori the number of lines, you could determine it based on one line of the header. If the file had the following content

 Header line 1..
 Header line 2..
 dataID   time   x    y
 1        120    8.7  9.1

you could determine that there are 4 columns based on the 3rd line of the header which contains column labels..

 function data = Load_Data( filename, strain_command_data )
    fid = fopen( filename, 'r' ) ;
    fgetl( fid ) ;                              % Skip line 1.
    fgetl( fid ) ;                              % Skip line 2.
    colLabels = fgetl( fid ) ;
    nCol = numel( regexp( colLabels, '\s+' )) + 1 ;
    formatSpec = repmat( '%f', 1, nCol ) ;
    data = textscan( fid, formatSpec, 'CollectOutput', 1 ) ;
    .. etc.
 end