Why does %c not read whitespaces with the TEXTREAD function?

Why does %c not read whitespaces with the TEXTREAD function?

I am trying to read a file using TEXTREAD. Here is an example input file:

 one two three four

 one two three four

I should be able to read this file using

[a, b] = textread('file', '%3c%3c%*[^\n]');

and expect the output to be:

 a=[ 'one'; 'one' ] and 

 b=[ ' tw'; ' tw'; ]

But I get

 a=[ 'one'; 'one' ] and

 b=[ 'two'; 'two' ]

It appears that the whitespace between the 'one' and 'two' is skipped.

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

This bug has been fixed for Release 14 (R14). For previous releases, please read below for any possible workarounds:

This is a bug in MATLAB that has been brought to the attention of our development staff so that it may be fixed in a future release of MATLAB.

As a workaround, you need to explicitly define the space as a whitespace character. You can do this by passing the 'whitespace' argument to the TEXTREAD command.

For example, your command line may look something like the following:

[a, b] = textread('file.m', '%3c%3c%*[^\n]','whitespace','');