How can I read ASCII delimited file, that its columns are seperated by more than one delimiter?

Hello,

I'm trying to read the following text file (try1.txt) into a matrix:

0:0:14.0  27.7
0:0:15.0  27.7
0:0:16.0  27.3
0:0:17.0  27.5
0:0:18.0  27.6
0:0:19.0  27.6

I want that each number that is separated by ':' or '\t', will appear in a different column in the new matrix.

If I'm typing:

M=dlmread('try1.txt',':',1,0)

I get only half of the original data in my new matrix:

M =

         0         0   14.0000
   27.7000         0         0
         0         0   15.0000
   27.7000         0         0
         0         0   16.0000
   27.3000         0         0

Can someone help me to achieve a matrix M with 6 rows and 4 columns?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

[Shalev]

Thanks for you both for the quick answers. A combination between the answers (below) gave me the best solution:

fid = fopen('5-29-2011_15-51.txt', 'r' );

a=textscan(fid,'%f:%f:%f %f' );

M=[a{1,1} a{1,2} a{1,3} a{1,4}];

[Walter Roberson]

If you use the CollectInput option of textscan() then your last step would become just

M = a{1};

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

Try using ':\t' as the delimiter.

[Shalev]

I tried, it doesn't work. I received the next error:

??? Error using ==> dlmread at 75

DELIMITER must be a single character.

[Walter Roberson]

You could use textscan: it accepts multiple delimiters.http://www.mathworks.com/help/techdoc/ref/textscan.html

Answer 3

[Robert Cumming]

using low level commands you can read it as so:

fid = fopen ( 'temp.txt', 'r' );
myMat = zeros(6,4);
if fid ~= -1
  for i=1:6
    [myMat(i,1) myMat(i,2) myMat(i,3) myMat(i,4)] = strread ( fgetl ( fid ), '%f:%f:%f %f' );
  end
  fclose ( fid );
end
myMat

this makes an assumption that your datafile always contains 6x4 data.