Development Environment

Importing Delimited ASCII Data Files

If your data file uses a character other than a space as a delimiter, you have a choice of several import functions you can use. (See Table 6-4 for a complete list.) The simplest to use is the dlmread function.

For example, consider a file named ph.dat whose contents are separated by semicolons.

7.2;8.5;6.2;6.6
5.4;9.2;8.1;7.2

To read the entire contents of this file into an array named A, enter

A = dlmread('ph.dat', ';');

You specify the delimiter used in the data file as the second argument to dlmread. Note that, even though the last items in each row are not followed by a delimiter, dlmread can still process the file correctly. dlmread ignores space characters between data elements. So, the preceding dlmread command works even if the contents of ph.dat are

7.2;   8.5;       6.2;6.6
5.4;   9.2   ;8.1;7.2

Importing Numeric Text Data

Importing Numeric Data with Text Headers