MATLAB: Importing Matrix from text or csv files

data importimportMATLAB

I have a large matrix that I'd like to import, preferably in one command into a few different Matlab variables. I have been attempting to use "importdata" but it doesn't seem to respect the row headers because many of them are numeric (CUSIPS). I have a file that's roughly 1000×500 with one row of column headers and one column of row headers. Does anyone know how I can import this data all at once? If not all at once, what's the easiest way to go about importing it all when I'm not quite sure how many columns I will have in total? In the end I should have two arrays of column headrers (text) and a matrix of numerical data.
Thanks a lot, Brian

Best Answer

Personally, I like the readtext() function from the FEX for mixed-type files: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/10946.
This is not to be confused with the MATLAB function textread(), whose help file has the quote "If the file contains any text data, an error is produced." :-)
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