Read table using readtable with different number of spaces and delete unnesessary spaces

My data is plain-text in the following format:

K L_1 L_2 N O
1 1 a1 3bD 1.72
2 1 2c 4Gd 1.43
3 1 e3 5Cf 1.33
4 1 g4 h5L 1.64
1 2 4i 4jA 1.48
2 2 6k lC8   na
3 2 m7 8nB   na
4 2 o8 Ap0 1.43

In row seven and eight my data are separated by more than one space. This leads to an error using readtable. I would like to delete this spaces so that I can use the command readtable. How can I solve this problem?

Answer 1

[Peter Perkins]

Thomas, if you provide a format string to readtable ('Format','%f%f%s%s%f' in your case, I think), you can also specify parameters for textscan. I think 'Delimiter',' ','MultipleDelimsAsOne',true will do what you want.