How to read a text file having strings and numeric data?

I have a 'txt' file with strings and numbers like this:

PATH VARIABLE SUMMARY                                              

       S           UY          EPTOX       EPTOZ   
     0.0000    -0.53581E-01 0.10604E-03-0.32000E-04
     1.0000    -0.54013E-01 0.10653E-03-0.32322E-04
     2.0000    -0.54450E-01 0.10702E-03-0.32638E-04
     3.0000    -0.54893E-01 0.10747E-03-0.32752E-04

etc...
PATH VARIABLE SUMMARY                                              

       S           UY          EPTOX       EPTOZ   
     42.000    -0.76168E-01 0.12966E-03-0.22470E-04
     43.000    -0.76806E-01 0.13042E-03-0.21690E-04
     44.000    -0.77447E-01 0.13119E-03-0.20854E-04
etc...

I need to read only numeric data as an array. I don't foreknow number of string lines in file and their format (!). I tried 'dlmread', but it terminates with an error.

In Mathcad, for example, I use 'READPRN', which ignores any text and reads numeric data from file without any problems. So now I have to read my files in Mathcad, export them to EXCEL and then read in MATLAB with 'xlsread'.

[jonas]

Try readtable

[Denis Perotto]

I tried 'readtable', it doesn't work. This function considers

6.0e-3-5.2

as one string, but there are two numbers: 6.0e-3 and -5.2

[Stephen23]

@Denis Perotto: does the file always have four columns of numeric data? Or can the number of columns change?

[Denis Perotto]

Well, I have about 14 files with constant number of columns (3, 4 or 5). I do foreknow this number, so I can modify my code for each case.

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

out = [];
[fid,msg] = fopen('test0.txt','rt');
assert(fid>=3,msg)
while ~feof(fid)
    str = fgetl(fid)
    vec = sscanf(str,'%f',[1,Inf])
    num = numel(vec);
    if num
        out(end+1,1:num) = vec;
    end
end  
fclose(fid);

Giving this:

>> out
out =
    0.00000   -0.05358    0.00011   -0.00003
    1.00000   -0.05401    0.00011   -0.00003
    2.00000   -0.05445    0.00011   -0.00003
    3.00000   -0.05489    0.00011   -0.00003
   42.00000   -0.07617    0.00013   -0.00002
   43.00000   -0.07681    0.00013   -0.00002
   44.00000   -0.07745    0.00013   -0.00002

The test file is attached.