My .txt file imports as a character string

Hi all,

I'd like to import a text file as a matrix of data. Here's what I have so far:

thefilename = gunzip('ftp://podaac-ftp.jpl.nasa.gov/allData/grace/L2/CSR/RL05/GAC-2_2004001-2004013_0013_UTCSR_0000_0005.gz');
copyfile(char(thefilename),[char(thefilename),'.txt']);

If I double-click on the resultant .txt file, I see that the formatted data begins on line 9, after 8 rows of headers. How can I tell Matlab to import the columns of data from rows 9:end?

Thanks, Chad

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

textscan() with the HeaderLines option.

[Chad Greene]

Brilliant! Until now I had a hard time finding the data after using textscan. When I'd use C=textscan(yada_yada), I'd then end up with a character set C, from which I did not now how to extract the data. Now I see I needed to use C{2} for the column two, etc. Here's the solution:

fid = fopen([char(thefilename),'.txt']);

C = textscan(fid,'%s %f %f %f %f %f %f %f %f %s','headerlines',8);

fclose(fid);

Then each column n can be accessed by C{n}. Thanks Walter!