read data formatted like ip address from a text file

I want to read a file formatted like this :

256.13.34.14: 257.13.34.15 221.18.87.18 266.13.77.19
257.13.34.15: 256.13.34.14 221.18.87.18

into a matrix like this:

256.13.34.14 257.13.34.15 221.18.87.18 266.13.77.19
257.13.34.15 256.13.34.14 221.18.87.18 0

[Bob Thompson]

Have you tried dlmread()? I know you can set the delimiter to be the space, ' ', between the different IPs. You'll need to make sure the rest is read in as a string, but it should work.

Of course, now I'm questioning myself on whether dlmread() can bring in strings, but I know txtread can have specified delimiters as well.

[Hessa saad]

yes, I tried it but it treats it as floating point meaning it only takes 256.13 from 256.13.34.14

[per isakson]

"into a matrix like this:" Do you mean character array?

[Elias Gule]

do you want to the data in string format or do you want it converted to double? This is very important in that it to a degree dictates the type of storage used for the data.

[Hessa saad]

no, I want the whole IP to be stored in the matrix, and yes it will be a string array since I can not store the IP as double.

Answer 1

[Elias Gule]

Assuming that you want to store the data as strings, and that the delimiters are 'whitespace' and ':'.

filepath = 'the_path_to_your_file.txt';
str = fileread(filepath);
cstr= splitlines(str);
cstr = cstr(~cellfun('isempty',cstr)); % Remove all empty line data
ips = regexp(cstr,'(\d+\.?)+','match');

This should give you a cell array of cell arrays containing the defined ip's.

[Hessa saad]

Thank you