extracting specific part from txt file

I need to create column from attached txt file as follows;

a=[87.5;85;82.5;80];  %for each LAT/LON1/LON2/DLON/H

%The txt file's column number is variable.

Answer 1

[Cedric]

It is difficult to understand what "for each .." means in your question. If you just need to extract the numbers that you specified, the following is one possible approach:

 content = fileread( 'trial.txt' ) ;
 matches = regexp( content, '[-\d\.]+(?=-\d)', 'match' ) ;
 data    = str2double( matches ) ;

which outputs

 >> data
 data =
   87.5000   85.0000   82.5000   80.0000

It may not be the most efficient in term of speed, but it is very concise.. could even be a one liner:

 data = str2double( regexp( fileread('trial.txt'), '[-\d\.]+(?=-\d)', 'match' )) ;