MATLAB: Parse a binary file with different number formats

parser

Hi, I have a binary file representing a surface, there is a header which provides some info about the surface like sampling rates along x and y axis, number of rows and columns and so on… then there is a series of values which represent values along z axis.
The header is made of short, long and float number formats while z values are in floats. An example can be this:
\\ HEADER: 
-float (type of figure)
-long (number of rows)
-long (number of columns)
-float (x sampling rate)
-float (y sampling rate)
-float (x origin)
-float (y origin)
...... //end of header
float z1
float z2
float z3
and so on
How can I retrieve all the values scanning the file? I tried with fread but I don't know which format option choose
Thanks

Best Answer

The documentation explains this clearly: doc fread
fid = fopen(File);
if fid == -1, error('Cannot open file %s', File); end
typeOfFigure = fread(fid, 1, 'float');  % -float (type of figure)
numOfRows    = fread(fid, 1, 'long');   % -long (number of rows)
numOfCols    = fread(fid, 1, 'long');   % -long (number of columns)
xSampleRate  = fread(fid, 1, 'float');  % -float (x sampling rate)
ySampleRate  = fread(fid, 1, 'float');  % -float (y sampling rate)
xOrigin      = fread(fid, 1, 'float);   % -float (x origin)
yOrigin      = fread(fid, 1, 'float);   % -float (y origin)
...
fclose(fid);
Looks trivial, doesn't it?
I'd prefer 'int32' instead of 'long', 'int16' instead of 'short' and 'single' instead of 'float', but this is only for clarity.
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