Setup arrays from tabular data in txt file with MATLAB

Question

So basically, I have data in a text file like so:

100 5 10 20 someval someval
200 6 20 12 someval someval
300 7 30 13 someval someval

The first 3 tokens would by used as (x, y, z) coordinates, while the fourth number will be used to create a color to use the surf(x,y,x,c) function. I like to be able to store the other values in the line too.

Answer 1

Try using the TEXTSCAN function:

fid = fopen('file.txt','rt');
A = textscan(fid, '%f %f %f %d %s %s', 'Delimiter',' ');
fclose(fid);

XYZ = [A{1:3}]
clr = A{4}
valsStr = [A{5:6}]

the result:

XYZ =
   100     5    10
   200     6    20
   300     7    30
clr =
          20
          12
          13
valsStr = 
    'someval'    'someval'
    'someval'    'someval'
    'someval'    'someval'

where

>> whos XYZ clr valsStr
  Name         Size            Bytes  Class     Attributes

  XYZ          3x3                72  double              
  clr          3x1                12  int32               
  valsStr      3x2               444  cell                

Answer 2

If you need to do this one time only, and you are using matlab with GUI, then you can just use File->import data , which is pretty smart about tabular formats.

But if you need to do this repeatedly, or make it part of your program, then you call the command line version importdata.