Extracting number from output file

Hello,

I'm trying to extract a number from a large text file. The line I'm looking for looks something like this:

SCF Done: E(RB3LYP) = -78.5770732414 A.U. after 9 cycles

How would I extract "-78.5770732414" using fscan or textscan?

Thanks in advance for your help!

-Jim

Answer 1

[Cedric]

 >> buffer = fileread('data.txt') ;
 >> loc = strfind(buffer, 'SCF Done: E(RB3LYP)') ;
 >> value = sscanf(buffer(loc+22:end), '%f')
 value =
   -78.5771

If you had more work to accomplish on the pattern matching side, you could use REGEXP. Example

 >> str2double(regexp(buffer, '(?<=SCF Done: E\(\w{6}\) =\s*)-?[\d\.]*(?=\s*A\.U\.)', 'match'))
 ans =
    -78.5771

this regexp pattern would match any occurrence of SCF.. where RB3LYP could be any 6 alpha-numerical characters code and where the number would be followed by A.U..