Question about getting text from a file

Hello,

I am creating a program that is gathering information from a file listing data values, an alphanumeric call sign, and date. I can access the data, and am trying to get the call signs in the third column. I would like to use these call signs to group the data values and dates for a plot. The .dat file is similar to this:

-55.00**  6.30**  2086**        2011-11-11 01**<br>
    21.70**  -17.70**  2AJI3**       2011-11-07 18**<br>
    20.20**  -17.80**  2AJI3**       2011-11-07 22**<br>
    17.50**  -17.80**  2AJI3**       2011-11-08 06**

Where * represents a spacing. (not all spacings are the same) So I can get the information from a textread command that puts it all in a 1 by X matrix where x is the total number of lines.

load 'sample.dat';

    la = sample(:,1); %gets column 1 from file%
    lo = sample(:,2); %gets column 2 from file%
    sh = sample(:,3); %gets column 3 from file% (needs to be a string)
    yr = sample(:,4); %gets column 4 from file (needs to reflect actual date, or just be a string)%

    pos = [la,lo];

    data = textread('sample.dat','%s','delimiter','\n','whitespace','');
    [col1, col2, col3] = textread('sample.dat','%n%n%n%*[\n]','delimiter',' ');

Now the textread at the bottom will get a col3 that is the correct length, but will truncate everything after the 2 of the third column. So, 2AJI3 will only return as 2 in the matrix I am creating. I would like to try and use textscan, but I have an older version of matlab, and do not know if I can update.

I know this is long, and I apologize, I am just trying to get the most information down that might help. Please be patient with me as I have not done this sort of data sorting before.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

[Fangjun Jiang]

I copied your text file data and removed all the "**" and "<br>" and then run the following command. It got all the data in place. I think you can start from there.

>> [a,b,c,d,e]=textread('test.txt','%f %f %s %s %f')
a =
  -55.0000
   21.7000
   20.2000
   17.5000
b =
    6.3000
  -17.7000
  -17.8000
  -17.8000
c = 
    '2086'
    '2AJI3'
    '2AJI3'
    '2AJI3'
d = 
    '2011-11-11'
    '2011-11-07'
    '2011-11-07'
    '2011-11-08'
e =
     1
    18
    22
     6

[Zach]

Fangjun,

I had tried that yesterday and had issues with it working, but I got my matlab updated last night, and it seems to work now. Perhaps I had not cleared something as well as I thought. Than you for your prompt reply and your patience.

Zach