How to assign variables to imported data columns

I am working on a project where I have to load a .txt file that has 4000 raw and 2 columns. I would like to use the second column only in one of my calculations. How can I do that? I tried to assign variable x to be the first column and y to be the second, but I didn't know how.

Answer 1

[Wonsang You]

Let's assume that you have the text file, including numbers of 4000 rows and 2 columns, called "data.txt". Then, try the following commands.

M = dlmread("data.txt");
X = M(:,2);

Then, X is a column vector including just the second column. I wish it is helpful for you.

[Emily hand]

What does the "M" do?

[Stephen23]

"What does the "M" do?"

M is just the name given to the matrix of imported data.

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/getting-started-with-matlab.html