Split Data in Character Array into Matrix

I currently have a character array (~ 50000 x 1) with data "DD-MM-YY 1000 NaN NaN NaN 0.200 0.300" all in one cell, and I want to split the characters into a matrix with cells for each of the colums (i.e. col1= "DD-MM-YY" col2= 1000, etc.). However, the data in some rows are not perfectly spaced/aligned with other rows because the length of the data may be > than the length of NaN (i.e. "DD-MM-YY 1000 0.111 NaN 0.2002 0.200 0.300 ") so I cannot filter them based on character location. There is extra spacing at the end to account for this shifting (each has a length of 80). Any ideas on how I could split the data, or even how to align all the data columns?

Thanks so much!

[Ameer Hamza]

Can you attach a sample dataset.

[Vanessa Yau]

Yes, the text file looks like this:

sample=

' ''May-24-2020 00:00:00" 100.000 NaN NaN NaN 0.3030 '

' ''May-24-2020 00:00:20" 100.0233 NaN 1.4 NaN NaN '

' ''May-24-2020 00:00:40" 100.33155 NaN NaN NaN 0.402 '

' ''May-24-2020 00:01:00" 100.507 NaN NaN NaN 0.7433 '

' ''May-24-2020 00:01:20" 100.900001 NaN NaN NaN 0.224 '

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

temp = regexp( cellstr(sample), '"(?<date>)[^"])"\s+(?<col2>\S+)\s+(?<col3>\S+)\s+(?<col3>\S+)\s+(?<col4>\S+)\s+(?<col5>\S+)\s+(?<col6>\S+)', 'names', 'once');
parts = vertcat(temp{:});

dates = datetime({parts.date}, 'Format', 'MMM-dd-yyyy HH:mm:ss');
col2s = str2double({parts.col2});
col3s = str2double({parts.col3});
col4s = str2double({parts.col4});
col5s = str2double({parts.col5});
col6s = str2double({parts.col6});

[Vanessa Yau]

Ok! I think I got it to work. Thanks!