Separate data from a text cum data file in matlab - matlab

My file contains text in first few lines and the data afterward. It looks like this -
#
SCALARS ESA FLOAT
LOOKUP_TABLE default
1.135409e-02
5.018007e-03
1.693268e-02
1.585292e-02
1.872202e-03
6.062706e-03
2.285194e-02
1.173866e-02
#
From this, how do i just obtain the data and store it to a variable in matlab ?

The textscan function will be quite useful here, and you can find a thorough introduction here: http://uk.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/textscan.html
Most of the MATLAB text import functions (including textscan) allow you to specify how many lines of text at the start of the file should be ignored, e.g.: 'HeaderLines',2 would be appropriate for your file.
An alternative method (such as if the header contains useful information is to read and store the header text:
fileID = fopen('testFile.txt'); % open connection to file
header = textscan(fileID,'%s',2,'delimiter','\n'); % read 2 header lines as strings
data = textscan(fileID,'%f','delimiter','\n'); % read till end of file as floats
fclose(fileID); % close connection to file

Related

How do you call a function that takes in a MAT file, manipulate the data in that file, and create a new textfile with that same MAT file name?

The filename in question is a MAT file that contains elements in the form of "a - bi" where 'i' signifies an imaginary number. The objective is to separate the real, a, and imaginary, b, parts of these elements and put them into two arrays. Afterwards, a text file with the same name as the MAT file will be created to store the data of the newly created arrays.
Code:
function separate(filename)
realArray = real(filename)
imagArray = imag(filename)
fileIDname = strcat(filename, '.txt')
fileID = fopen(fileIDname, 'w')
% more code here - omitted for readability
end
I am trying to run the above code via command window. Here's what I've tried so far:
%attempt 1
separate testFileName
This does not work as the output does not contain the correct data from the MAT file. Instead, realArray and imagArray contains data based on the ascii characters of "testFileName".
e.g. first element of realArray corresponds to the integer value of 't', the second - 'e', third - 's', etc. So the array contains only the number of elements as the number of characters in the file name (12 in this case) instead of what is actually in the MAT file.
%attempt 2
load testFileName
separate(testFileName)
So I tried to load the testFileName MAT variable first. However this throws an error:
Complex values cannot be converted to chars
Error in strcat (line 87)
s(1:pos) = str;
Error in separate (line xx)
fileIDname = strcat(filename, '.txt')
Basically, you cannot concatenate the elements of an array to '.txt' (of course). But I am trying to concatenate the name of the MAT file to '.txt'.
So either I get the wrong output or I manage to successfully separate the elements but cannot save to a text file of the same name after I do so (an important feature to make this function re-usable for multiple MAT files).
Any ideas?
A function to read complex data, modify it and save it in a txt file with the same name would look approximately like:
function dosomestuff(fname)
% load
data=load(fname);
% get your data, you need to knwo the variable names, lets assume its call "datacomplex"
data.datacomplex=data.datacomplex+sqrt(-2); % "modify the data"
% create txt and write it.
fid=fopen([fname,'.txt'],'w');
fprintf(fid, '%f%+fj\n', real(data.datacomplex), imag(data.datacomplex));
fclose(fid);
There are quite few assumptions on the data and format, but can't do more without extra information.

Matlab saving a .mat file with a variable name

I am creating a matlab application that is analyzing data on a daily basis.
The data is read in from an csv file using xlsread()
[num, weather, raw]=xlsread('weather.xlsx');
% weather.xlsx is a spreadsheet that holds a list of other files (csv) i
% want to process
for i = 1:length(weather)
fn = [char(weather(i)) '.csv'];
% now read in the weather file, get data from the local weather files
fnOpen = xlsread(fn);
% now process the file to save out the .mat file with the location name
% for example, one file is dallasTX, so I would like that file to be
% saved as dallasTx.mat
% the next is denverCO, and so denverCO.mat, and so on.
% but if I try...
fnSave=[char(weather(i)) '.mat'] ;
save(fnSave, fnOpen) % this doesn't work
% I will be doing quite a bit of processing of the data in another
% application that will open each individual .mat file
end
++++++++++++++
Sorry about not providing the full information.
The error I get when I do the above is:
Error using save
Argument must contain a string.
And Xiangru and Wolfie, the save(fnSave, 'fnOpen') works as you suggested it would. Now I have a dallasTX.mat file, and the variable name inside is fnOpen. I can work with this now.
Thanks for the quick response.
It would be helpful if you provide the error message when it doesn't work.
For this case, I think the problem is the syntax for save. You will need to do:
save(fnSave, 'fnOpen'); % note the quotes
Also, you may use weather{i} instead of char(weather(i)).
From the documentation, when using the command
save(filename, variables)
variables should be as described:
Names of variables to save, specified as one or more character vectors or strings. When using the command form of save, you do not need to enclose the input in single or double quotes. variables can be in one of the following forms.
This means you should use
save(fnSave, 'fnOpen');
Since you want to also use a file name stored in a variable, command syntax isn't ideal as you'd have to use eval. In this case the alternative option would be
eval(['save ', fnSave, ' fnOpen']);
If you had a fixed file name (for future reference), this would be simpler
save C:/User/Docs/MyFile.mat fnOpen

How to read a number from text file via Matlab

I have 1000 text files and want to read a number from each file.
format of text file as:
af;laskjdf;lkasjda123241234123
$sakdfja;lskfj12352135qadsfasfa
falskdfjqwr1351
##alskgja;lksjgklajs23523,
asdfa#####1217653asl123654fjaksj
asdkjf23s#q23asjfklj
asko3
I need to read the number ("1217653") behind "#####" in each txt file.
The number will follow the "#####" closely in all text file.
"#####" and the close following number just appear one time in each file.
clc
clear
MyFolderInfo = dir('yourpath/folder');
fidin = fopen(file_name,'r','n','utf-8');
while ~feof(fidin)
tline=fgetl(fidin);
disp(tline)
end
fclose(fidin);
It is not finish yet. I am stuck with the problem that it can not read after the space line.
This is another approach using the function regex. This will easily provide a more advanced way of reading files and does not require reading the full file in one go. The difference from the already given example is basically that I read the file line-by-line, but since the example use this approach I believe it is worth answering. This will return all occurences of "#####NUMBER"
function test()
h = fopen('myfile.txt');
str = fgetl(h);
k = 1;
while (isempty(str) | str ~= -1 ) % Empty line returns empty string and EOF returns -1
res{k} = regexp(str,'#####\d+','match');
k = k+1;
str = fgetl(h);
end
for k=1:length(res)
disp(res{k});
end
EDIT
Using the expression '#####(\d+)' and the argument 'tokens' instead of 'match' Will actually return the digits after the "#####" as a string. The intent with this post was also, apart from showing another way to read the file, to show how to use regexp with a simple example. Both alternatives can be used with suitable conversion.
Assuming the following:
All files are ASCII files.
The number you are looking to extract is directly following #####.
The number you are looking for is a natural number.
##### followed by a number only occurs once per file.
You can use this code snippet inside a for loop to extract each number:
regx='#####(\d+)';
str=fileread(fileName);
num=str2double(regexp(str,regx,'tokens','once'));
Example of for loop
This code will iterate through ALL files in yourpath/folder and save the numbers into num.
regx='#####(\d+)'; % Create regex
folderDir='yourpath/folder';
files=cellstr(ls(folderDir)); % Find all files in folderDir
files=files(3:end); % remove . and ..
num=zeros(1,length(files)); % Pre allocate
for i=1:length(files) % Iterate through files
str=fileread(fullfile(folderDir,files{i})); % Extract str from file
num(i)=str2double(regexp(str,regx,'tokens','once')); % extract number using regex
end
If you want to extract more ''advanced'' numbers e.g. Integers or Real numbers, or handle several occurrences of #####NUMBER in a file you will need to update your question with a better representation of your text files.

Find and replace text file Matlab

I'm writting a Matlab code that generates an array number and it should replace that each number in a text file (that already exists) and replace all instances with that. The number should be in string format. I've achieved this:
ita='"';
for i=1:size(z,2)
word_to_replace=input('Replace? ','s');
tik=input('Replacement? ','s');
coluna=input('Column? ');
files = dir('*.txt');
for i = 1:numel(files)
if ~files(i).isdir % make sure it is not a directory
contents = fileread(files(i).name);
fh = fopen(files(i).name,'w');
val=num2str(z(i,coluna));
word_replacement=strcat(tik,val,ita);
contents = regexprep(contents,'word_to_replace','word_replacement');
fprintf(fh,contents); % write "replaced" string to file
fclose(fh) % close out file
end
end
end
I want the code to open the file#1 ('file.txt'), find and replace all instances 'word_replacement' with 'word_to_replace' and save to the same file. The number of txt files is undefined, it could be 100 or 10000.
Many thanks in advance.
The problem with your code is the following statement:
contents = regexprep(contents,'word_to_replace','word_replacement');
You are using regular expressions to find any instances of word_to_replace in your text files and changing them to word_replacement. Looking at your code, it seems that these are both variables that contain strings. I'm assuming that you want the contents of the variables instead of the actual name of the variables.
As such, simply remove the quotations around the second and third parameters of regexprep and this should work.
In other words, do this:
contents = regexprep(contents, word_to_replace, word_replacement);

How to avoid the repeated paragraghs of long txt files being ignored for importdata in matlab

I am trying to import all double from a txt file, which has this form
#25x1 string
#9999x2 double
.
.
.
#(repeat ten times)
However, when I am trying to use import Wizard, only the first
25x1 string
9999x2 double.
was successfully loaded, the other 9 were simply ignored
How may I import all the data? (Does importdata has a maximum length or something?)
Thanks
It's nothing to do with maximum length, importdata is just not set up for the sort of data file you describe. From the help file:
For ASCII files and spreadsheets, importdata expects
to find numeric data in a rectangular form (that is, like a matrix).
Text headers can appear above or to the left of the numeric data,
as follows:
Column headers or file description text at the top of the file, above
the numeric data. Row headers to the left of the numeric data.
So what is happening is that the first section of your file, which does match the format importdata expects, is being read, and the rest ignored. Instead of importdata, you'll need to use textscan, in particular, this style:
C = textscan(fileID,formatSpec,N)
fileID is returned from fopen. formatspec tells textscan what to expect, and N how many times to repeat it. As long as fileID remains open, repeated calls to textscan continue to read the file from wherever the last read action stopped - rather than going back to the start of the file. So we can do this:
fileID = fopen('myfile.txt');
repeats = 10;
for n = 1:repeats
% read one string, 25 times
C{n,1} = textscan(fileID,'%s',25);
% read two floats, 9999 times
C{n,2} = textscan(fileID,'%f %f',9999);
end
You can then extract your numerical data out of the cell array (if you need it in one block you may want to try using 'CollectOutput',1 as an option).