MATLAB: Importing Text based on character column integer

columnformatformattedimporttext;textscan

Hi all,

I am trying to import a PDB file into a cell array, but I cannot use textscan() because some of the text columns are so full that the space that normally delimits data is gone.

For an example of my data style look at the ATOM section here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_Data_Bank_(file_format)

What is an alternative function that I can use break my rows of text by the column they are in?

For example, if I wanted to break the phrase "the brown quick fox jumped over a lazy dog" by columns 1:6, 7:10, 11: then I would get…

[the br] [own] [ quick fox jumped over a lazy dog]

THANKS!

Best Answer

Sample:

textscan('the brown quick fox jumped over a lazy dog','%6s%3s%s', 'Delimiter', '')

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MATLAB: How to read data from csv files containing both text and data

'Pends on what you mean, specifically, by 'data'. One of the easiest ways to treat mixed data files if you do want the numeric and text portions separately is xlsread; it will autogmagically return the text, numeric and then the 'raw' data as a cell array...

>> [n,t,r]=xlsread('test.csv')
n =
     1     1     1
     2     2     2
     3     3     3
     4     4     4
     5     5     5
     6     6     6
     7     7     7
     8     8     8
     9     9     9
    10    10    10
    11    11    11
t =
  15×4 cell array
    'text'    'text'    'text'    'text'
    'text'    'text'    'text'    'text'
    ''        ''        ''        'text'
    ''        ''        ''        'text'
    ''        ''        ''        'text'
    ''        ''        ''        'text'
    ''        ''        ''        'text'
    ''        ''        ''        'text'
    ''        ''        ''        'text'
    ''        ''        ''        'text'
    ''        ''        ''        'text'
    ''        ''        ''        'text'
    ''        ''        ''        'text'
    'text'    'text'    'text'    'text'
    'text'    'text'    'text'    'text'
r =
  15×4 cell array
    'text'    'text'    'text'    'text'
    'text'    'text'    'text'    'text'
    [   1]    [   1]    [   1]    'text'
    [   2]    [   2]    [   2]    'text'
    [   3]    [   3]    [   3]    'text'
    [   4]    [   4]    [   4]    'text'
    [   5]    [   5]    [   5]    'text'
    [   6]    [   6]    [   6]    'text'
    [   7]    [   7]    [   7]    'text'
    [   8]    [   8]    [   8]    'text'
    [   9]    [   9]    [   9]    'text'
    [  10]    [  10]    [  10]    'text'
    [  11]    [  11]    [  11]    'text'
    'text'    'text'    'text'    'text'
    'text'    'text'    'text'    'text'
>>

readtable is also useful; it will bring in all the data as columnar but will be cell array since each column is a mixture.

Truthfully, depending upon what it is that is to be done, it might realistically be the best thing to reorganize the file structure and "fix" the problem at that point.

MATLAB: How to make character String

str='the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog'
out=strsplit(str)

strsplit was introduced in R2013a

If your Matlab version is older

str='the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog'
out=regexp(str,'\S+','match')

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MATLAB: How to read data from csv files containing both text and data

MATLAB: How to make character String

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