MATLAB: How to read two words from a text file

read wordstext file

As the question says, what is the easiest way to read just the first two words from a text file in MATLAB? There is more data in the text file, but I don't need to read them. Bonus points if I can store them in a string easily.

Best Answer

You can use fgets() to read a line and extract first two words using following code
fID = fopen(filename, 'r');
firstLine = fgets(fID);
fclose(fID);
spaceLocation = strfind(firstLine, ' ');
requiredWords = firstLine(1:spaceLocation(2)-1);
If your text file has no new lines, then you can also specify the number of character to read. For example, you only want first two words. It is safe to assume that first two words will be less than 30 characters in length. You can do it like this
firstLine = fgets(fID, 30);  % replace 30 with any number you see appropriate.
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