Why am I getting this error when trying to show a cell of an array? "Brace indexing is not supported for variables of this type"

Hi, I'm trying to make a code for reading an array (dat) from a text file and changing each cell per column and per row according to a rule. But when I try to use braces to show a specific cell, for example:

hi=dat{5,3}

It shows this error: "Brace indexing is not supported for variables of this type".

So I can't even start making loops changing the values of the cells because it's not even allowing me to use braces for a specific cell.

Here's the code I used for reading the text and converting to an array:

rap = yourfolder; %'path of folder where my file is located'
fnm = fullfile(rap,'sh_day.txt');
fmt = repmat('%f',1,301);
opt = {'HeaderLines',3, 'CollectOutput',true,'Delimiter',','};
[fid,msg] = fopen(fnm,'rt');
assert(fid>0,msg)
dat = textscan(fid, fmt, opt{:});
fclose(fid);
dat = dat{1};

Thanks!

[Simon Allosserie]

Is that value on location (5,3) in dat actually a cell? You use {} for selecting cells. If you select the cell content, you need to use ().

[Rebeca Lopez]

Right! Thank you!

Answer 1

[Stephen Cobeldick]

dat is numeric, so you need to use parentheses:

hi = dat(5,3)

I already explained this in more detail in my response to your comment:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/749202-why-do-i-get-0x301-empty-double-matrix-when-reading-a-cell-array-with-data-in-it#comment_1356179

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

Your file has no data (after at most 3 header lines). The textscan result is empty.