MATLAB: Read data from a tricky text file

import dataread datatext file

Dear all,
I would like to read numeric data from a file which has the following standard format:
1  (15, 16, 266, 251)
2  (16, 17, 267, 266)
3  (17, 18, 268, 267)
4  (18, 19, 269, 268)
5  (19, 20, 270, 269)
6  (20, 21, 271, 270)
7  (21, 22, 272, 271)
8  (22, 23, 273, 272)
9  (23, 24, 274, 273)
The data is tab separated and number of rows arbitrary. I would like to end up with a variable containing the values of the left-most column, and the data in the parentheses should be treated as a single vector per row.
e.g.:
>> data{1}
  {[1]}, {[15, 16, 266, 251]}
>> data{2}
  {[2]}, {[16, 17, 267, 266]}
As long as I can access the the data as two numeric columns, I'd be happy!
I have tried importdata(), dlmread() and fget methods. They all seem to return each row of data as a cell of characters.
Thanks in advance for the help!
Best regards,
Louis

Best Answer

Assuming "data in the parentheses" all have equal length. Why cell array? Isn't this good enough?
fid = fopen( 'cssm.txt' );
cac = textscan( fid, '%f%f%f%f%f', 'Delimiter', {'\t',','}  ...
            ,   'Whitespace',' ()', 'CollectOutput',true    );
fclose( fid );
num = cac{:};
>> num
num =
     1    15    16   266   251
     2    16    17   267   266
     3    17    18   268   267
     4    18    19   269   268
     5    19    20   270   269
     6    20    21   271   270
     7    21    22   272   271
     8    22    23   273   272
     9    23    24   274   273
>> num(2,2:end)
ans =
    16    17   267   266
where cssm.txt contains the data of your question.
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