Writing Code for function with CSV and character array

How do you code for a function that returns a character array associated with a column from a character array in comma-separated values (CSV) format.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

If the column number to extract is C then

fmt = [repmat('%*s', 1, C-1), '%s', '%*[^\n]']

Now you can use that with textscan with Delimiter set to comma. You will need to convert the cell array that results into a character array.

There are other approaches including using readtable, especially after using detectImportOptions and setting the returned variables option to just the column you want.