MATLAB: Does TEXTSCAN ignore the whitespace parameter in MATLAB 7.0.1 (R14SP1)

formatMATLABparameterspaceSpecificationtextscanwhite

When I try to read in a file of the following format:

 "5","10","20"
 "10","256","13"

using the following TEXTSCAN command:

A = textscan(fid,'%f%s%f','whitespace','\b\t" ','delimiter',',')

the contents of A{2} are:

     10"
     256"

It appears that my whitespace format specification is being ignored.

Best Answer

This enhancement has been incorporated in Release 2006b (R2006b). For previous product releases, read below for any possible workarounds:

There is an issue in MATLAB 7.0.1 (R14SP1) in the way that TEXTSCAN handles the %s format with a custom whitespace option. To work around this issue, you can clean the resulting data using the STRREP command. For example, you might use:

A{2} = strrep(A{2},'"','');

Related Solutions

MATLAB: What is the role of the whitespace parameter in the TEXTSCAN function in MATLAB 7.8 (R2009a)

This enhancement has been incorporated in Release 2010b (R2010b). For previous product releases, read below for any possible workarounds:

Whitespace is the default delimiter property when reading strings. When 'whitespace' is not set, strings are parsed between any 'whitespace' characters. When 'whitespace' is set to somethign more specific, like '\n', strings are only parsed between the instances of '\n.'

Note in the below examples how the string format specifier behaves differently:

test1 = textscan('string1 string2', '%s', 1)
test1 = textscan('string1 string2', '%s', 1, 'whitespace','')
%recapture space delimiter
test1 = textscan('string1 string2', '%s', 1, 'whitespace', '', 'delimiter', ' ')

MATLAB: Does the TEXTSCAN function with the ‘treatAsEmpty’ option using ‘NAN’ show an in MATLAB 7.3 (R2006b)

This is expected behavior in MATLAB. The 'treatAsEmpty' option accepts only string inputs. When the input is of the form 'NAN' or any combination {nan,NAN}, they are treated as NaN(Not a Number). Since NaN has numerical significance, it throws the error “TreatAsEmpty strings cannot be numeric.”

The workaround is to replace all fields that are NAN with NaN and call the textscan function without the 'treatAsEmpty' option, for Example:

textscan(fid,'%s%s%f%f%f%f','delimiter','|');

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MATLAB: What is the role of the whitespace parameter in the TEXTSCAN function in MATLAB 7.8 (R2009a)

MATLAB: Does the TEXTSCAN function with the ‘treatAsEmpty’ option using ‘NAN’ show an in MATLAB 7.3 (R2006b)

Related Question