How to read a .map file

Hello, I was just curious how you would read a .map file to MATLAB. Also when you use write table, how to reference a table by loop.

clearvars;
clc;
characters_to_write = {'example1' 'example2' 'example3'}';
example1 = array2table(rand(3,3));
example2 = array2table(rand(3,3));
example3 = array2table(rand(3,3));
for loop = 1:size(characters_to_write,1) 
  filepath = char(strcat('C:\main_path\sub_path\',characters_to_write(loop,1),''));
  filename = strcat('C:\main_path\sub_path\',characters_to_write(loop,1),'\test_file_',characters_to_write(loop,1),'.csv'); 
      if ~exist(filepath,'dir') 
          mkdir(filepath); 
          writetable(char(characters_to_write(loop,1)),filename,'Delimiter', ','); % this is where I'm trying to reference data in a loop 
      elseif exist(filepath,'dir') 
          writetable(char(strcat('output_',characters_to_write(loop,1)','_table')),filename,'Delimiter', ','); % curious
      end
end

Thank you.

[Walter Roberson]

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/304528-tutorial-why-variables-should-not-be-named-dynamically-eval

[Walter Roberson]

Are the .map files for Quake or for Duke Nukem 3D ?

[Seok Joon Byun]

Haha, no, the map files contains a series of data that I need to link and merge with another sort of data. i tried opening them in excel and they just look like strings and chars and doubles and nans with some missing values.

[Walter Roberson]

... when we do not know which software produced the .map file, it is difficult for us to make suggestions about MATLAB software to read the .map file. .map is not a standardized file format: it is used for completely different software for completely different purposes.

[Seok Joon Byun]

I think the map file was produced by perl, will this help?

[Walter Roberson]

If you knew which perl module, that would help.

[Seok Joon Byun]

sorry don't know

[Walter Roberson]

Is it http://maq.sourceforge.net/maq-manpage.shtml ?

[Seok Joon Byun]

I asked and they said there is no module, just developed code in perl? Will this help? Sorry I couldn't get more information.

[Walter Roberson]

What kind of data is in the .map file?

Is the perl code available for us to look at?

[Seok Joon Byun]

The .map file can be opened in excel and has several columns with tickers cusips and company names, don't have the code unfortunately.

[Seok Joon Byun]

tried forcing it in matlab with readtable, xlsread and did not work

[Walter Roberson]

Would a sample .map file be out of the question? You can zip it and upload the zip.

[Seok Joon Byun]

sorry, don't think I can :(

[Seok Joon Byun]

still, I appreciate the feedback man :)

[Walter Roberson]

I notice you are using MS Windows. Do you happen to have a Mac or Linux system available to you? If so then could you copy one of the .map files onto there, and then go into the command line of that system (e.g., Mac 'Terminal' utility), and use the "file" command and see what it says?

For example,

roberson$ file CA10.Cyl1.P01
CA10.Cyl1.P01: PCX ver. 2.5 image data

(That particular file turns out to have nothing at all to do with PCX, but at least the information gave me something concrete to investigate.)

[Seok Joon Byun]

Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with either Mac or Linux... :( It's alright, I can just manually open these files in excel and save them as csv and then read them in MATLAB...

[Walter Roberson]

Sorry, there just is not enough information available to us.

[Seok Joon Byun]

It's all good, thanks though!