load -ascii : inconsistent behavior

I am trying to read a tab-delimited ascii file. It has 99 rows and 5 columns.

In R2012b, the command

load FILENAME.ext -ascii

correctly loads the file, producing a variable FILENAME of size 99 x 5.

On a different machine, with R2012a, the same command applied to the same file produces a variable FILENAME of size 1 x 495.

That is, under R2012a the load command is reading the file as a single line of values, rather than as a 2-dimensional array. Strangely, if I use the Import Wizard in R2012a, it immediately recognizes FILENAME as containing a 99 x 5 array of tab-delimited values.

I need to have this code work under both versions of Matlab. Any explanations for the inconsistent behavior?

FWIW the code also worked under earlier versions.

Thanks. Hal

Answer 1

[Jan]

Read ASCII files with LOAD had a bug in 2012a, when the old MacOS-9 linebreaks are used. Then load the file using fileread, replace char(13) by char(10) and save the resulting string with fopen + fwrite.

See: http://www.mathworks.com/support/bugreports/794792

[Hal Caswell]

Thanks.

Answer 2

[Image Analyst]

Try dlmread() or importdata() instead.

[Hal Caswell]

It looks like those would indeed work, and would be fine if I was just starting out. But I've used load -ascii for a long time and would prefer to not have to change the command any time I go back to use older code.