Parsing Ugly Files

Is there a faster way then fgetl or fgets to read a text file line by line? The data I need out of a text file is very specific and if I have an IF statement looking for that format then the solution is quite simple. That being said both of these functions are VERY slow and I could use some ideas on how to better do this.

[Jan]

FGETS is not slow usually, if you process files on your local harddisk. Please post your code such that we could find other problems.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

There are various methods to read in files as continuous strings (e.g., fileread()) or as cell arrays of strings [that might be lines] (such as textscan() with '^[^\n]' format).

If the file is fairly big, you would not want to fileread() it, but you might want to read groups of lines (i.e., textscan); reading groups might require reading "a little more" if you detect that the target might have started but be incomplete in what you have buffered.

You might be able to use strcmp() or regexp() to find the key text that marks the beginning of a block.