read file containing mixed content

Hello,

The format of an input text file is the following:

1    23.08    был
2    367.92    сказал 
3    12567.53    когда
...

and so on.

How to read this file so that the following loop can be used:

for i=1:length(file)
    str=fileName(i,3);
    ...
end

Thanks.

[Stephen23]

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/readtable.html

[b]

Hello Stephen,

Already tried that. The third column seems to be a problem.

Here is the readtable output:

Var1    Var2     Var3        
____    _____    _____    

1      23        {'�'}   
2      367       {'�'}  

How to read the last column? Thanks.

[Rik]

I personally prefer to do the parsing myself if the automatic one-liner tools fail.

Have you tried reading it as text and doing the parsing with textscan?

[b]

textscan also gives this output:

ans =

1×1 cell array

{'�'}

for the 3rd column.

[Rik]

Can you attach the file and post your code? That way we can experiment.

[Stephen23]

"How to read the last column?"

It works perfectly for me using R2021b (the current online version):

T = readtable('a.txt')

T = 3×3 table
    Var1     Var2        Var3   
    ____    ______    __________

     1       23.08    {'был'   }
     2      367.92    {'сказал'}
     3       12568    {'когда' }

So whatever version or OS you are using is not up-to-date. This also means that the solution will depend on what version (and possibly OS) you are using, which you have not told us.

[b]

I am genuinely surprised at this output. My OS is windows 10 version 10.0.19044. The matlab version is 2 years old 2020a. With these, the fprintf of the third column is only the question-marks.

Also, on my computer, Var2 appears rounded, and not with the decimal digits as in the output above.

[Christopher Creutzig]

20a may need a hint as to the file encoding you are using. readtable("a.txt","Encoding","UTF-8","NumHeaderLines",0) seems to work for me.

[b]

Thank you. Thats exactly where the problem was.

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

Try this:

% Get file name
fullFileName = fullfile(pwd, 'a.txt')
if ~isfile(fullFileName)
    errorMessage = sprintf('Error: file not found:\n%s', fullFileName);
    fprintf('%s\n', errorMessage)
    uiwait(errordlg(errorMessage))
    return;
end
% Open the file for reading in text mode.
fileID = fopen(fullFileName, 'rt');
% Read the first line of the file.
textLine = fgetl(fileID);
lineCounter = 1;
while ischar(textLine)
    % Print out what line we're operating on.
    fprintf('%s\n', textLine);
    % Split into words.
    words = strsplit(textLine);
    % Assign to vectors
    col1(lineCounter) = str2double(words{1});
    col2(lineCounter) = str2double(words{2});
    col3{lineCounter} = words{3};
    % Read the next line.
    textLine = fgetl(fileID);
    lineCounter = lineCounter + 1;
end
% All done reading all lines, so close the file.
fclose(fileID);
% Transpose from row vectors into column vectors
col1 = col1'
col2 = col2'
col3 = col3'

[b]

With this, the third column is still not printing properly:

64047 1.11 ������ 
67221 1.05 ��������

[Image Analyst]

It worked for me with my copy and paste of your original post. If it's not working with your original file, please attach your data file so I can check my program with your actual data file.

[b]

Hmmm ... oddly and strangely, it is somehow working now ...