problem in importing data through textscan

Hello everybody,

In fact, I have a text file with dat extension in which the data format is as follows:

Date     Time    CO

2009-02-25  18:39:01   165.3

I used the following code to import the data:

fid = fopen('CO_2009_m.dat','r');

data_f2 = textscan(fid,'%s %s %f', 'delimiter', ' ', 'collectoutput',1,'headerlines',1);

fclose(fid)

and I found where my CO concentration is two digits before decimal, for instance, 70.1, the output is as follows:

357.9

357.2

NaN

NaN

359.4

and even sometimes the data is mixed with the string as follows:

'2009-01-02'  '19:30:00'

'4.6'  ''

2009-01-02'  '19:40:00'

'2009-01-02'  '19:50:00'

'0.5'  ''

Does any body have any idea how can I get rid of this situation importing the string and the data separately?

kind regards,

Rahman

[per isakson]

Are you sure it is space delimited? Try and remove the spaces from the format specifier.

Answer 1

[per isakson]

Try this

    fid = fopen('cssm.txt', 'r' );

    data_f2 = textscan( fid,'%s%s%f'                        ...
                    ,   'delimiter'             ,   ' '     ...
                    ,   'headerlines'           ,   1       ...
                    ,   'MultipleDelimsAsOne'   ,   true    ...
                    ,   'CollectOutput'         ,   true    );

    fclose(fid)

.

and this

    fid = fopen('cssm.txt', 'r' );

    data_f2 = textscan( fid,'%s%s%f'                        ...
    ...             ,   'delimiter'             ,   ' '     ...
                    ,   'headerlines'           ,   1       ...
    ...             ,   'MultipleDelimsAsOne'   ,   true    ...
                    ,   'CollectOutput'         ,   true    ...
                    );

    fclose(fid)

.

Tested with R2012a, 64bit, Windows7.

Default for Delimiter is "white-space", which includes space, tab, etc.

Doc says: "... If you do not specify a delimiter, textscan interprets repeated white-space characters as a single delimiter."