MATLAB: How to put (tab delimited) text files together removing header text

.txt filesconcatenateMATLABremove header

Hi, I have many text files in the following format:
Name of the file
Date
Other useless data
Column1 [unit]    Column2 [unit]     Column3 [unit]    Column4 [unit]  ...
0.025             6.8                9.4               9.5             ...
0.050             2.8                4.4               4.2             ...
0.075             3.3                7.4               6.1             ...
...
I would like to copy all the data from all the files into a single file. I am familiar with the command:
!copy a.txt+b.txt ab.txt
However, I would like to remove all header lines and have only the numerical data in the new file (and then put a new header line in the first row so that 'tdfread' can read it easily). I would like my output file to look like this
MyHeader1     MyHeader2     MyHeader3     MyHeader4       ...
0.025         6.8           9.4           9.5             ...
0.050         2.8           4.4           4.2             ...
0.075         3.3           7.4           6.1             ...
...
Another challenge is that there are several thousands of files, so I would need an automated procedure to read the files after one another. Or alternatively, a way to select all the files in a folder to concatenate. Unfortunately they are not conveniently named so I cannot construct the file names in a for loop for example. Any help is very much appreciated.

Best Answer

So, the answer is the same as originally given, then...use sotoo
fmto=['%12.3f' repmat('%12.3f',1,nCols-1)];  
fido=fopen(youroutputfilename,'w');
fprintf(fido,'%s\n', yourheadertext)
for j=1:length(fileList)
  fid = fopen(fileList(j).name,'r');
  d=cell2mat(textscan(fid,'%f','headerlines', 6, 'treatasempty',{'n/a';'N/A'}));
  fid=fclose(fid);
  fprintf(fido,fmto,d')
end
fido=fclose(fido);
Adjust the various parameters to suit.
doc textscan % and friends
for more detail on the various options for empty values, and
doc fprintf % etc.
for detail of format strings to match you desired output formats. With a regular file format it is really pretty straightforward. The other respondents use of save is somewhat less verbose at the cost of less control over the output format--your choice depending on wants/needs.
ERRATUM:
Forgot the \n character for the output format...
fmto=['%12.3f' repmat('%12.3f',1,nCols-1) '\n'];
Also if do want the tab-delimited form retained then need it as well...
fmto=['%12.3f' repmat('\t%12.3f',1,nCols-1) '\n'];
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