Relimiter for text files

A utility for robustly changing the delimiter within text files in order to make them easier to use
209 Downloads
Updated 20 Jan 2015

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This utility intelligently provides a new delimiter to a file while ignoring any instances of the delimiter that occur between double quotes (or other qualifiers).
It's often the case that a comma-delimited file will use commas both as delimiters and within text cells. In the latter case, the cell is usually surrounded by double quotes ("like this") or some other qualifier to indicate that the comma within is to be ignored as a delimiter.

MATLAB does not pay attention to this in functions like READTABLE and DATASET, to the annoyance of the end user.

This function provides one solution: it creates a temporary file that is delimited with a different delimiter (by default, '|') but otherwise identical. It correctly ignores the space between qualifiers. This can be called before READTABLE or DATASET, and the downstream code base is thus unaffected.

Optional arguments allow you to control the output file location, the new and old delimiters, and the text qualifier character. Attention has been paid to execution speed, but further suggestions for speedups are welcome.

Cite As

Michael Weidman (2024). Relimiter for text files (https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/49096-relimiter-for-text-files), MATLAB Central File Exchange. Retrieved .

MATLAB Release Compatibility
Created with R2013a
Compatible with any release
Platform Compatibility
Windows macOS Linux
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Version Published Release Notes
1.0.0.0