importing .txt file using textscan

Good Afternoon, I am trying to import data from a text file in order to plot, and need help writing a scipt.

the text file has text as well as numerical data within it so the load function wont work.

I don't fully understand how the textscan function works, my text data has the first 4 rows with just text, and then the columnheaders in each column, (row 5). Every row past this is just space separated numerical data.

How would I write the command out as to import the data into a usable format to plot with? The data is seprated by spaces (no commas)

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

fid = fopen('YourFile.txt','rt');
datacell = textscan(fid, '%f%f%f', 'HeaderLines',5);
fclose(fid);

After that, datacell{1} is a vector containing the first column, datacell{2} is a vector containing the second column, datacell{3} is a vector containing the third column.

[douglas]

Is there a way to just have it display the data as an mxn matrix with the data displayed as it was in the text file? where m is the number of rows and n is the number of columns?

[Walter Roberson]

fid = fopen('YourFile.txt','rt');

datacell = textscan(fid, '%f%f%f', 'HeaderLines', 5, 'CollectOutput');

fclose(fid);

After that, datacell{1} would be the m x 3 matrix.

[douglas]

I followed this and did indeed get my 3 columns (datacell{1,1} to datacell {1,3} etc) but the data is jumbled and random.

this is what I have so far:

clear all

close all

cd('C:\Documents and Settings\dgraham\Desktop\78 TEXT FORMAT')

fid = fopen('MT_00051-001.txt','rt');

datacell = textscan(fid, '%f%f%f','delimiter',' ','HeaderLines',5);

fclose(fid);

[douglas]

// Start Time: 0

// Sample rate: 10.0Hz

// Scenario: 3.8

// Firmware Version: 2.5.1

Year Month Day Second Counter Acc_X Acc_Y Acc_Z

0 0 0 0 0 -2.106693 -0.116872 9.583546

0 0 0 0 1 -2.104776 -0.058476 9.625679

0 0 0 0 2 -2.084688 -0.14616 9.588604

0 0 0 0 3 -2.053025 -0.097248 9.568006

0 0 0 0 4 -2.126364 -0.175665 9.635413

This is an example of one of the text files

Answer 2

[douglas]

figured out why my results were jumbled. If I have more columns than I specify in the format, it takes additonal data and puts it in the 3 columns it spits out. Thanks for the help.