Textscan issue with txt file data delimited space : or .

Hello I am using textscan to export data from txt file:

'17:12:35 -1 -1 1 12 -1 -10.017 35 comment'

I would like to separate in each data value (hours min sec # # # # # #.# # string)

I used data = [textscan(fopen(strcat(PathName, FileName)),'%f:%f:%f %f %f %f %f %f %f.%f %f %s','Delimiter','\t','HeaderLines', 17)];

It works fine to distinguish time in hours min and sec, however I don't know how to delimit when the dot occurs. I have 2 different value informations. One before and one after the dot that I need to separate.

Any help?

Thank you

Answer 1

[Cam Salzberger]

Hello Mafalda,

%f will specify to interpret the text as a floating point number. Since floating point numbers can have decimals, it accepts the period as part of the number.

I can think of two options here:

1) Assuming you'll never have an entry like "3.1414.27", you can try accepting both the numbers around the period as integers (%d or %i) instead of floating point. Then convert back to double afterwards.

2) Accept it as a single double, and split it into two entities afterwards (using mod and round or something along those lines).

-Cam

[Mafalda Couto]

Hi Cam

The first option didn't work either. I think I'll go for the second!

Thank you very much*

[Cam Salzberger]

Hmm, when I do a simple parse, it seems to work for the integer datatypes.

teststr = '17:12:35  -1  -1  1  12  -1  -10.017  35 comment';
sscanf(teststr,'%f:%f:%f\t%f\t%f\t%f\t%f\t%f\t%d.%d\t%f\t%s')

Maybe it's something specific about textscan's arguments? Glad the second option is working for you though.