MATLAB: Convert a fixed width char array into a column vector

Question

Hello! I have troubles converting numbers from a char array to double format. The char array always has the dimensions 1×48. Every 8 characters represent an integer. Sometimes there are spaces between numbers and sscanf fails to give the results I need. For example:

aa = ' 1703434 42      1012275140184521401845314018473';
sscanf(aa,'%8d')
ans = 
    1703434
         42
   10122751
   40184521
   40184531
    4018473

should return in fact

ans = 
    1703434
         42
   10122751
   14018452
   14018453
   14018473

The reason why I don't use str2double for each 8 characters in 'aa' is that it gets very slow for many conversions. The original file I read also contains other words, and this array 'aa' is only a part of each line I read. So far sscanf was the fastest method and it worked well until this line was encountered.

Could anyone please explain me why sscanf behaves like this? Is there any quick alternative?

Answer 1

str2num(reshape(aa,8,[])');