MATLAB export multiple .csv files at one time - matlab

I have a matrix where I need to export each column into a separate .csv file.
I know the number of columns and I can achieve my desired result if I specifically select one column to export. I would do this by:
dlmwrite('1.csv',data(:,1), 'precision', 9)
Therefore if I want column 2 I would change the variable to data(:,2) and save this as 2.csv.
So I want a loop that will do all this automatically. I have tried
for i=1:Number_of_Columns
dlmwrite('(i).csv',csv_data(:,(i)), 'precision', 9)
end
which clearly won't work but I am unsure how to do it.
Any help or advice would be much appreciated

Your problem is the filename. If you put i between quotes it will be taken as character instead of a variable. (In your case your filename will always be "(i).csv")
You can concatenate strings using [ ], and since i is an integer you have to convert it to string using num2str()
Try:
for i=1:Number_of_Columns
dlmwrite([num2str(i) '.csv'], csv_data(:,i), 'precision', 9)
end
PD: Since you are storing each column (not each row) in a file, I'm not sure if you want a file where each element is in a separate line, or if you want the column to be stored as a row and separated by commas.
If you want the latter, transpose your column:
dlmwrite([num2str(i) '.csv'], csv_data(:,i).', 'precision', 9)
Note that the transpose operator is .' instead of the complex conjugate ' (this is a common misuse since the results are the same as long as you only use real numbers)

Related

Can table variable names start with a number character?

I am running something like this:
table = readtable(path,'ReadVariableNames',true);
In the .csv file all of the cells of the first row contain string identifiers like '99BM', '105CL', etc. Everything starts with a number. The command above gives a table with variable names like 'x99BM', 'x105CL', etc.
Is it possible to get rid of this 'x'? I need to compare these identifiers with a column of another table that is clear of this 'x'.
No, table variable names can't start with a number since they follow the same naming conventions as normal variables. The 'x' is automatically added by readtable to create a valid name. You should have noticed this warning when calling readtable:
Warning: Variable names were modified to make them valid MATLAB identifiers.
The original names are saved in the VariableDescriptions property.
So, you can't get rid of the 'x' within the table. But, if you need to do any comparisons, you can do them against the original values saved in the VariableDescriptions property, which will have this format:
>> T.Properties.VariableDescriptions
ans =
1×2 cell array
'Original column heading: '99BM'' 'Original column heading: '105CL''
You can parse these with a regular expression, for example:
originalNames = regexp(T.Properties.VariableDescriptions, '''(.+)''', 'tokens', 'once');
originalNames = vertcat(originalNames{:});
originalNames =
2×1 cell array
'99BM'
'105CL'
And then use these in any string comparisons you need to do.
No. As mentioned by gnovice, the readtable function automatically renames invalid names. It does this by calling matlab.lang.makevalidname and setting the output as the column name.
If I understand correctly, you're comparing the contents of a column from one table with the names of the columns of another table. In that case contains(['x' <contents of single row of column>], table.VariableNames) will prepend x to the value in a row of the table column (for this implementation, you need to loop through every row of the table) and then compare this string with the variable names of the table. You can also do this in a single line with arrayfun or something but I am doing this from memory right now and can't recall the correct syntax.

Writing Tables from Matlab into CSV

I have several tables in matlab that and I would like to write all to one .csv file, vertically concatenating. I would like to keep the column names from each table as the top row, and would like to use a loop to write the csv. The ultimate goal is to read the data in to R, but R.matlab did not work well. Suggestions about how to do this?
Alternatively how can I change filenames in a for loop using the iterator?
e.g. along the lines of
for i=1:10
writecsv('mydatai.csv',data(i))
end
So I must have at the end 10 csv files as output.
You can change the filename within the loop by using for sprintf string formatting function, for example:
dlmwrite(sprintf('mydata%i.csv', i), data(i) )
Note that the %i portion of the string is the sprintf formatting operator for an integer, it is just a coincidence that you also decided to name your iterator variable 'i'.
You can append extra data to an existing CSV by using the dlmwrite function, which uses a comma delimiter as the default, and including the '-append' flag.
Another way would be to use
writetable(Table,filename )
and to change file name after every alternation you can use
filename = ['mydata' num2str(i) '.csv']

How to import column of numbers from mixed string numerical text file

Variations of this question have already been asked several times, for example here. However, I can't seem to get this to work for my data.
I have a text file with 3 columns. First and third columns are floating point numbers. Middle column is strings. I'm only interested in getting the first column really.
Here's what I tried:
filename=fopen('heartbeatn1nn.txt');
A = textscan(filename,'%f','HeaderLines',0);
fclose(filename);
When I do this A comes out as just a single number--the first element in the column. How do I get the whole column? I've also tried this with the '.tsv' file extension, same result.
Also tried:
filename=fopen('heartbeatn1nn.txt');
formatSpec='%f';sizeA=[1 Inf];
A = fscanf(filename,formatSpec,sizeA);
fclose(filename);
with same result.
Could the file size be a problem? Not sure how many rows but probably quite a few since file size is 1.7M.
Assuming the columns in your text file are separated by single whitespace characters your format specification should look like this:
A = textscan(filename,'%f %s %f');
A now contains the complete file content. To obtain the first column:
first_col = A{:,1};
Alternatively, you can tell textscan to skip the unneeded fields with the * option:
first_col = cell2mat( textscan(filename, '%f %*s %*f') );
This returns only the first column.

How to get the number of columns of a csv file?

I have a huge csv file that I want to load with matlab. However, I'm only interested in specific columns that I know the name.
As a first step, I would like to just check how many columns the csv file has. How can I do that with matlab?
As Jonesy and erelender suggest, I would think this will do it:
fid=fopen(filename);
tline = fgetl(fid);
fclose(fid);
length(find(tline==','))+1
Since you don't seem to know what kind of carriage return character (or character encoding?) is being used then I would suggest progressively sampling your file until you encounter a recognizable CR character. One way to do this is to loop over something like
A = fscanf(fileID, ['%' num2str(N) 'c'], sizeA);
where N is the number of characters to read. At each iteration test A for presence of carriage return characters, stop if one is encountered. Once you know where the carriage return is just repeat with the right N and perform the length(find...) operation, or alternately accumulate the number of commas at each iteration. You may want to check that your file is being read along rows (is it always?), check a few samples to make sure it is.
1-) Read the first line of file
2-) Count the number of commas, or seperator characters if it is not comma
3-) Add 1 to the count and the result is the number of columns in the file.
If the csv has only numeric value you can use:
M=csvread('file_name.csv');
[row,col]=size(M);

Matlab : Read a file name in string format from a .csv file

I am having a .csv file which contains let's say 50 rows.
At the beginning of each row I have a file name in the following format 001_02_03.bmp followed by values separated by commas. Something like this :
001_02_03.bmp,20,30,45,10,40,20
Can someone tell me how can I read the first column from the data?
I know how to obtain the data from the second column onward. I am using the csvread function like this X = csvread('filename.csv', 0, 1);. If I try to read the first column in the same manner it outputs an error, saying the csvread does not support string format.
Use textscan, ie:
fid1 = fopen(csvFileName);
X = textscan(fid1, '%s%f%f%f%f%f%f', 'Delimiter', ',');
fclose(fid1);
FirstCol = X{1, 1};
A little more detail? csvread only works with purely numeric data, so you can't use it to get in data with a .bmp, or underscores for that matter. Thus we use textscan. The funny looking format string input to textscan is just saying that the columns are, in order, of type string %s, then the next 6 columns are of type double %f%f%f%f%f%f (or you might choose to alter this to reflect an integer datatype - I personally rarely bother unless the quantity of data is huge or floating point precision is a problem).
Note, if you just wanted to get the first column and ignore the rest, you can replace the format string with %s% %*[^\n]. A final point, if your csv file has a header line, you can skip it using the HeaderLines optional input to textscan.