MATLAB: Reading a textfile without removing leading zeros

MATLABtextscan

I want to read the attached text-file which contains two columns: text and numeric. I used the code:
fileID=fopen('NWISMapperExport.txt','r');
z=textscan(fileID,'%s %f');
fclose(fileID);
The problem is that it removes leading zeros in the second column, is there is a simple way to retain zeros? I had the same problem with importdata.

Best Answer

If you want to retain the leading zeros, you have to read them in as strings:
filename = 'NWISMapperExport.txt';
fidi = fopen(filename, 'rt');
D = textscan(fidi, '%s%s', 'CollectOutput',1);
Look = D{:}(1:5,2) % Check First Five Rows, Second Column
Look =
5×1 cell array
{'00152020'}
{'00500460'}
{'00501860'}
{'02380002'}
{'02380003'}