MATLAB: Readtable truncates rownames if using ReadRowNames

readtablerownamestable

One of the options for "readtable" is "ReadRowNames".
Apparently, when "ReadRowNames" is true, Matlab silently truncates the length of rownames to a maximum of 63 characters.
However, if you manually assigned row names to a table in Matlab, they can be of arbitrary length. (e.g. myTable.Properties.RowNames = cellArrayOfVeryLongStrings works and does not truncate row names.)
No warning is given, and this "feature" is not mentioned in any documentation or Matlab tutorial on Tables.
Note that Matlab issues various warnings when, say, Variable Names for table are too long, non-unique, contain invalid characters, etc. The crime here is that Matlab automatically "formats" incoming rownames in "readtable" without any warning or notification.

Best Answer

cmo, you are correct, thank you for finding this bug. I will make a note to have it fixed. For the time being, you can read in the file with ReadRowNames set to false, and then assign the row names and delete the string variable.
Just out of curiosity, what names do you have that are more than 63 characters?
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