MATLAB: Is it that DLMREAD in MATLAB 6.0 (R12) fails to read data correctly when there are empty fields

dlmreademptyfieldsMATLAB

DLMREAD of numeric data with tab delimited fields in MATLAB 6.0 does not seem to be working as it did in previous versions of MATLAB if some of the fields are empty.
For example if I have a tab delimited text file called numbers.txt with the following data:
 0.16340.6536291.342
 0.16340.817291.506
 1.3072291.506
 1.4706291.669
 2.1242291.669
 2.2876291.832
 3.5948291.832
 3.7582291.996
 4.4118291.996
 4.5752291.832
and I invoke the command:
>> RESULT=DLMREAD('numbers.txt','\t')
RESULT =
      0.1634    0.6536  291.3420
      0.1634    0.8170  291.5060
      1.3072  291.5060         0
      1.4706  291.6690         0
      2.1242  291.6690         0
      2.2876  291.8320         0
      3.5948  291.8320         0
      3.7582  291.9960         0
      4.4118  291.9960         0
      4.5752  291.8320         0
This is incorrect!
But if I do the same thing in MATLAB 5.3.1, I get the correct result:
+ RESULT=DLMREAD('numbers.txt','\t')
RESULT =
      0.1634    0.6536  291.3420
      0.1634    0.8170  291.5060
               0    1.3072  291.5060
               0    1.4706  291.6690
               0    2.1242  291.6690
               0    2.2876  291.8320
               0    3.5948  291.8320
               0    3.7582  291.9960
               0    4.4118  291.9960
               0    4.5752  291.8320

Best Answer

This bug has been fixed for Release 14 (R14). For previous releases, please read below for any possible workarounds:
As a workaround for previous releases, please make sure that empty fields are replaced with a number as the placeholder. This will ensure that DLMREAD reads the data correctly.
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