why the only first row of the imported data using importdata is not correct

I have following data copied from excel file and then pasted to a file "x.txt":

USName  Height  Width  Thickness  Area

-  -  -  -  in^2

L1x1x1/8  1  1  0.125  0.234375

then I use following commands to load the file

S = importdata('x.txt','\t');

and then check S.textdata and I got:

[1x34 char]     []     []     []        []

'-'            '-'    '-'    '-'    'in^2'

'L1x1x1/8'     ''     ''     ''     ''

Why the first row is not parsed? as

'USName'  'Height'  'Width'  'Thickness'  'Area'

I have another data in which I did the same but I got the correct info with following operations. Just do not understand why.

Please help. Thanks...

Answer 1

[J. Hu]

If I switch the first and second row as:

- - - - in^2

USName Height Width Thickness Area

L1x1x1/8 1 1 0.125 0.234375

I got:

'- - - - in^2' [] [] [] []

'USName' 'Height' 'Width' 'Thickness' 'Area'

'L1x1x1/8' '' '' '' ''

Still, the only the first row not parsed correct. Why? Thanks...