Resolved: Need help for using textscan to read a csv file

Below is my code. I could not find any issues with that. But the results "tmp" are always empty {0x70 cell}.

Please help. Thanks.

====== Code =======

fid = fopen('testfile.csv', 'rt');

formatspec = [repmat('%s ', 1, 70) '%*[^\n]'];

tmp = textscan(fid, formatspec, 1, 'delimiter', ',', 'collectoutput', true, 'headerlines', 16);

fclose(fid);

======= One row of the data file ========== 09FA20010524,09FA20010524,1,2.00105E+17,1,24,2,20010525,0,-44.429,179.9582,1011,989,1000.8,4.531,-999,9,34.307,2,-999,9,-999,9,-999,9,-999,9,-999,9,-999,9,-999,9,-999,9,-999,9,-999,9,-999,9,2.781,2,-999,9,-999,9,-999,9,-999,9,-999,9,-999,9,-999,9,-999,-999,-999,-999,-999,4.45259,27.1871,31.7778,36.2656,40.6526,44.9407

[per isakson]

Try to make the code readable

[Leon]

Just edited them. Sorry about that.

[Walter Roberson]

Could you show us a sample line? The 17th line from the csv ?

[Leon]

I just added a sample line as above. Thanks.

Answer 1

[dpb]

>> s='09FA20010524,09FA20010524,...,31.7778,36.2656,40.6526,44.9407';
>> fmt = [repmat('%s ', 1, 70) '%*[^\n]'];
>> textscan(s, fmt, 1, 'delimiter', ',', 'collectoutput', true)
ans = 
  {1x70 cell}
>> ans{1}
ans = 
Columns 1 through 7
  '09FA20010524'    '09FA20010524'    '1'    '2.00105E+17'    '1'    '24'    '2'
Columns 8 through 14
  '20010525'    '0'    '-44.429'    '179.9582'    '1011'    '989'    '1000.8'
...
Columns 68 through 70
  '44.9407'    []    []
>> length(findstr(s,','))
ans =
  67

Your problem is the last -- there are only 68 fields, not 70 at least in the above record and that combined w/ the last '%*[^\n]' in the format string causes the failure on subsequent lines. Also, lose the extra blank in the format string; it instructs textscan() to try to match an explicit blank of which there are none in the file--I'm a little surprised that didn't cause a failure.

Just use

fmt = repmat('%s', 1, 68);

should be all you need.

Check the input file for consistency in number of columns/record, though, too.

[Leon]

Thank you so much, Dpb. That solved my problem. I appreciate your time in helping me out very much!