Good way to import data file

Hey, I need to import a large data file into matlab, but I'm unsure of the best way to do it. I've been experimenting with the fopen and textscan but can't get anything to work correctly. Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

[Michael Haderlein]

If the format doesn't change through the file (such that after 10 s, suddenly also data about whatever appears), you can simply use:

fid=fopen('test.txt');
data=textscan(fid,'%*s%f','delimiter',':');
fclose(fid);
t=data{1}(1:4:end);
gs=data{1}(2:4:end);
gflat=data{1}(4:4:end);
gflong=data{1}(3:4:end);

Answer 2

[David Sanchez]

I'm sure this might be shorter, but I guess it'll be a valid solution for you:

fid = fopen('your_file_name_here.txt');
my_file = textscan(fid, '%s', 'delimiter', '\n');
my_file = my_file{1};
fclose(fid)

% now you have a cell array (my_file) with each line of your *.txt in a different
% cell

% you can extract the values like this:
L = length(my_file); % number of lines in your file
my_data = zeros(L,1);  % initialization of matrix to hold your data
for k = 1:L  % loop along each line
    str_value = textscan(my_file{k}, '%s %s', 'delimiter', ':' );
    my_data(k) = str2double(cell2mat(str_value{1,2}));
end

I guess you can figure out how to assign every four values to each variable