MATLAB: Import text file with blank lines. Matlab not replacing them with NaN

blankimportnanregexprepregular expressiontxt

Matlab is not replacing my blank lines in my txt file with NaN but just joins all the data together. Unfortunately I need to data in the exact order it is as each line is a unique timestamp but the times are do not come in the txt file.
Any ideas? Tried importdata and textscan with no luck. Using R2014b

Best Answer

Remains (at least) two possibilities
  • a loop over fgetl
  • read the file as one string, replace empty lines by 'nan nan ... ' and parse with textscan
Example (R2013a)
    >> cac = cssm;
    >> cac{:}
    ans =
        16     2     3    13
         5    11    10     8
       NaN   NaN   NaN   NaN
         9     7     6    12
         4    14    15     1
where
    function cac = cssm
        str = fileread('cssm.txt');
        str = regexprep( str, '(?<=\r?\n)[ ]*(?=\r?\n)', 'nan nan nan nan');
        cac = textscan( str, '%f%f%f%f', 'CollectOutput', true );
    end
and where cssm.txt contains
    16     2     3    13
     5    11    10     8
     9     7     6    12
     4    14    15     1
&nbsp
Replace
    str = regexprep( str, '(?<=\r?\n)[ ]*(?=\r?\n)', 'nan nan nan nan');
by
    str = regexprep( str, '(?<=\r?\n)[ ]*(?=\r?\n)' ...
                  , 'nan nan nan nan', 'emptymatch' );
to handle empty lines
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