Matlab: How can I read in a string separated with spaces but ignore single spaces (using textscan)?

A simpler solution to parse your string would be to use the function REGEXP to find the indices where you have 2 or more whitespace characters in a row, use these indices to break your string up into a cell array of strings using the function MAT2CELL then use the function STRTRIM to remove leading and trailing whitespace from each substring. For example.

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Hi all and thanks in advance. This is my first post here, please let me know if I should do this differently. I have a large textfile containing lines like the following: "DATE TIMESTAMP T W M T AL M C A_B_C" At first I read this in using the fopen and fget1 commands, so that I get a string: Readout = DATE TIMESTAMP T W M T AL M C A_B_C I want to transform this via e.g. Textscan.

While I feel I know matlab I am by no means expert with this command and have trouble using it. I want to get: A = 'Date' 'TIMESTAMP' 'T W M' 'T AL M C' 'A_B_C' However using the following code: A = textscan(Readout,'%s'); A = A{1}'; I get: A = 'DATE' 'TIMESTAMP' 'T' 'W' 'M' 'T' 'AL' 'M' 'C' 'A_B_C' As I asked in the title, is there a way to ignore the single spaces? PS: At the end of writing this I just came up with a not very elegent solution I would still like to know if there is any nicer solution, however: ReadBetter = ; for n = 1:length(Read)-1 if Read(n) == ' ' & Read(n+1) ~= ' ' else ReadBetter = ReadBetter Read(n); end end ReadBetter = ReadBetter Read(n+1); Read ReadBetter Output: Read = DATE TIMESTAMP T W M T AL M C A_B_C ReadBetter = DATE TIMESTAMP TWM TALMC A_B_C Now I can use ReadBetter with textscan.

Thanks for this awesome webpage and the help I found here, in many other posts matlab textscan link|improve this question asked Jun 30 '11 at 7:36Birk Birk61.

A simpler solution to parse your string would be to use the function REGEXP to find the indices where you have 2 or more whitespace characters in a row, use these indices to break your string up into a cell array of strings using the function MAT2CELL, then use the function STRTRIM to remove leading and trailing whitespace from each substring. For example: >> str = 'DATE TIMESTAMP T W M T AL M C A_B_C'; >> cutPoints = regexp(str,'\s{2,}'); >> cellArr = mat2cell(str,1,diff(0 cutPoints numel(str))); >> cellArr = strtrim(cellArr) cellArr = 'DATE' 'TIMESTAMP' 'T W M' 'T AL M C' 'A_B_C.

Newer versions of matlab have a 'split' option for regexp similar to perl's split. >> str = 'DATE TIMESTAMP T W M T AL M C A_B_C'; >> out = regexp(str, ' +', 'split') out = 'DATE' 'TIMESTAMP' 'T W M' 'T AL M C' 'A_B_C.

I think that you are making things too complicated. Just use: fid = fopen('pathandnameoffile'); textscan(fid,'%s','Delimiter','\t'); The example above assumes that you have tabs as delimiters. Change it to something else if required.

Thanks, but the files I have to open are strange (at least to me). All simple ways to open the files have failed on me, so that I ended up reading in line by line and then getting the problem described above. Maybe they are somehow corrupt, or their huge size (80Mb each) gives matlab a headache.

– Birk Birk Jun 30 '11 at 7:59.

Here's one way to read your file: file. Dat DATE TIMESTAMP T W M T AL M C A_B_C DATE TIMESTAMP T W M T AL M C A_B_C DATE TIMESTAMP T W M T AL M C A_B_C DATE TIMESTAMP T W M T AL M C A_B_C DATE TIMESTAMP T W M T AL M C A_B_C DATE TIMESTAMP T W M T AL M C A_B_C MATLAB code: fid = fopen('file. Dat', 'rt'); C = textscan(fid, '%s %s %c%c%c %c%2c%c%c %s'); fclose(fid); C = C{1}, C{2}, ... cellstr( strcat(C{3},{' '},C{4},{' '},C{5}) ), ... cellstr( strcat(C{6},{' '},C{7},{' '},C{8},{' '},C{9}) ), ... C{10} The resulting cell-array: C = 'DATE' 'TIMESTAMP' 'T W M' 'T AL M C' 'A_B_C' 'DATE' 'TIMESTAMP' 'T W M' 'T AL M C' 'A_B_C' 'DATE' 'TIMESTAMP' 'T W M' 'T AL M C' 'A_B_C' 'DATE' 'TIMESTAMP' 'T W M' 'T AL M C' 'A_B_C' 'DATE' 'TIMESTAMP' 'T W M' 'T AL M C' 'A_B_C' 'DATE' 'TIMESTAMP' 'T W M' 'T AL M C' 'A_B_C.

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