converting to a matrix

I have a tab separated text file with columns user_iD movie_Id ratings time. I want to create a matrix where the (i,j) entry is rating by user i for the movie j. there are 100,000 ratings from 1000 users on 1700 movies.

196  242  3  881250949

186  302  3  891717742

22  377  1  878887116

244  51  2  880606923

166  346  1  886397596

Answer 1

[Niklas Nylén]

data = importdata('file.txt')

[R yan]

thank you. that creates a matrix with the same format as given in the file. how to create a matrix where the (i,j) entry is rating by user i for the movie j.