tab delimited .txt file

In order to write a matrix as a tab delimited .txt file I can use the following command:

dlmwrite(Filename, Data, 'delimiter', '\t');

Say that the dimensions of 'Data' is [m n], how is it possible to include a non numeric vector (i.e. vector containing words) as m(1) in order to state what each colummn refers to in the .txt file?

thanks

Answer 1

[Grzegorz Knor]

Suppose that your Data is:

Data = [1 2 3;4 5 6; 7 8 9];

Would you like to create such a file?

line1 1 2 3
line2 4 5 6
line3 7 8 9

If so, this is my suggestion:

Data = [1 2 3;4 5 6; 7 8 9];
names = {'line1','line2','line3'};
fid = fopen('test_file','w');
for k=1:3
   fprintf(fid,'%s\t%.2f\t%.2f\t%.2f\n',names{k},Data(k,:));
end
fclose(fid);

[ricco]

It's nearly what I need, although the .txt file shows the data all in one row:

linw1 1 2 3 line2 4 5 6 line3 7 8 9

Instead I need the data in 3 rows and 3 columns with line1 line2 line3 as headers on each column.

[Walter Roberson]

Change the 'w' in the fopen() to 'wt'

[ricco]

thanks that works perfectly. How would this code be altered if I needed the format of the .txt file to have the header on the top of each column of the matrix not on each row?

[Paul Safier]

What if the data matrix had more than a few columns, say thousands? Would you have to type a format (e.g. .2f\t%) for each column?

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

dlmwrite() can only be used for numeric data or for pure character data (an ugly hack with little purpose). dlmwrite() cannot be used for mixing character data and numeric data.

Grzegorz's proposed code looks fine.

Answer 3

[Adam Danz]

For more recent releases of Matlab (r2013b or later), use writetable() with the delimiter set to \t.

writetable(T,'tabledata2.txt','Delimiter','\t')

Example.