MATLAB: Do I receive an error when reading the file with the CSVREAD or DLMREAD functions from MATLAB

delimiterdlmreadfileheaderlinesi/oMATLABtextread

Why do I receive an error when reading my file with the CSVREAD or DLMREAD functions from MATLAB?
The CSVREAD and DLMREAD functions seems to ignore the column specification when reading in a file. I get errors when trying to read a non-numeric entry in column 1, even when I've specified to begin reading from column 2 (zero-based numbers). My file is as follows:
row1,row2,row3,row4,row5
col1,1,2,3,4
col1,5,6,7,8
col1,9,10,11,12
col1,13,14,15,16
The command I use is:
d = csvread('csvReadTest.csv',1,1)
Here is the error:
 ??? Trouble reading number from file (row 1, field 1) ==> col1,1,2,3,4\n
 Error in ==> C:\MATLABR12\toolbox\matlab\iofun\dataread.dll
 Error in ==> C:\MATLABR12\toolbox\matlab\iofun\textread.m
 On line 159  ==> [varargout{1:nlhs}]=dataread('file',varargin{:});
 Error in ==> C:\MATLABR12\toolbox\matlab\iofun\dlmread.m
 On line 102  ==>     result  = textread(filename,'',nrows,'delimiter',delimiter,'whitespace',whitespace, ...
 Error in ==> C:\MATLABR12\toolbox\matlab\iofun\csvread.m
 On line 45  ==>     m=dlmread(filename, ',', r, c);

Best Answer

This bug has been fixed in MATLAB 6.1 (R12.1).
As a workaround, please consider pre-editing your data file to remove the first column of text. Alternatively, you can use TEXTREAD to read your file.
http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/techdoc/ref/textread.shtml
For example, consider the following file named 'test.txt':
row1,row2,row3,row4,row5
col1,1,2,3,4
col1,5,6,7,8
col1,9,10,11,12
col1,13,14,15,16
The following code will read the data into the variable 'x':
[x(:,1) x(:,2) x(:,3) x(:,4)] = textread('test.txt','%*s %d %d %d %d','delimiter',',','headerlines',1)
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