Error reading .mat file

Hi, I have a .mat file which is produced by MIPAV and for some reason matlab cannot load it, here's the error message. Just wondering if anyone seen this before?

Number of columns on line 2 of ASCII file /Users/fiona/Desktop/_801_smask.mat

must be the same as previous lines.

Error in uiimport/runImportdata (line 467)

datastruct = load('-ascii', fileAbsolutePath);

Error in uiimport/gatherFilePreviewData (line 435)

[datastruct, textDelimiter, headerLines]= runImportdata(fileAbsolutePath,

type);

Error in uiimport (line 245)

gatherFilePreviewData(fileAbsolutePath);

[Guillaume]

Can we have an example of the file?

Using readtable or readmatrix (if your version is new enough) would allow more flexibility than using load which is probably the worse way of reading text files.

[Stephen23]

Fiona Gong's "Answer" moved here:

Example attached. I have matlab 2018a so cannot use readmatrix. Readtable returns an error too 'Unable to open file '_801_smask.txt'.'

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

MIPAV wrote a dud file.

Open that file in any reliable text editor, and you will find that it contains the text "MIPAV is writing a .mat file" and then the null character repeated 1247525 times, along with a few other assorted characters for variety:

It does not look much like a valid .mat file.

[Fiona Gong]

Thanks Stephen, it's bizzare how MIPAV makes .mat files....