extract numeric values from strings in xls files?

Hi,

I have an xls file with 10 columns. The columns are full of string and inside the strings there are some numeric values that I need to extract and put in a new column. I was thinking to do something like this:

load doc.txt  %to load the file in txt format
  for i=1:total lines of txt
     read each line
      take numeric values
       put in table
end

I don't even know if any from above is possible in matlab. Is it possible to read strings and from them extract the numeric values?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

You can use regexp() and str2double()

Note: if the values are floating point numbers that might be in exponential format, then it is fairly difficult to construct a correct regexp pattern that will match such numbers properly. When working with such numbers, it is much easier if there is a delimiter such as space or comma.