real simple -- spreadsheet parsing

got a spreadsheet with data like this , basically n by m matrix containing alpha-numerical values

i just want to reduce this to a numeric (double) matrix (2d array) containing only the middle number , i.e. the number that's in between the : and the (

like 1759, 1777,1755... the 4 digit number thats in the middle . i want to plot them out on a graph

the format is fixed

how do i do this

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

You can use extractBetween() on the string array, and double() the result

[chang liu]

worked like a charm!

Answer 2

[chang liu]

since the format is fixed i was thinking maybe easy way is to just say ignore the first 6 or so characters, ignore the last 7 characters?

i am using importdata() and then convert to string by doing string()