Readtable from a text file with multiple delimiter

Hello,

I have a text file with column delimited by tab , but the string containing the variable name has as a delimiter simple multiple space.

Is there a way to specify that the delimiter of the variable name row is different from the rest of the file ?

[Rik]

I don't have the actual answer, but you could parse them separately.

Answer 1

[Rishik Ramena]

You can try using readcell in the following way. I'm not sure how your data looks like. If this does not help in your data, you can try importing the data interactively using the Import Tool.

table = readcell('rows.txt', 'Delimiter', '  ') 
% 2×5 cell array
% 
%     {'peter'}    {'pan'}    {[10]}    {[ 2]}    {[30]}
%     {'john' }    {'doe'}    {[30]}    {[50]}    {[60]}
col_1 = table(:, 1);
col_2 = table(:, 2);
name = strcat(col_1, {' '}, col_2)
% name =
% 
%   2×1 cell array
% 
%     {'peter pan'}
%     {'john doe' }

[andrea]

Thank you, it helped. Do you know if there is a function that returns the number of the lines where there is an occurrence of a given expression? I mean I want to find on which lines the word "hello" is found in a text

[Rik]

Are you interested in the line number in your file, or in your variable?

[andrea]

In the file.

[Rik]

You can get my readfile function from the FEX. If you are using R2017a or later, you can also get it through the AddOn-manager. That will read your file to a cell array (1 cell per line), after which you can loop through the lines and use something like contains.