Technical Solutions

Solution:

Assume that a file named 'WCorrVols45obs.txt' stores tab delimited data whose column wise contents you would like to assign to the variables with the names same as the column headers in the file.:

Step 1: Read the column headers in the file and store them in a variable along with the tab spaces.
%open file
fid = fopen('WCorrVols45obs.txt','r');
%discard first row of headers
fgetl(fid);
%retrieve column headers
headers = fgetl(fid);
%close file
fclose(fid);
Step 2:
Convert the column headers into individual elements stored in a cell array. You can call this function (which will parse a tab separated file):
function names = getvarnames(tempstr)
%Given a string containing variable names separated by spaces
%this function returns a cell array containing each variable name.
%
%Written by Megean McDuffy 06/21/00

index = 0;
while length(tempstr > 0)

index = index + 1;

%the fliplr function flips the array left to right this line of
%code will take blanks off of the front and back of the header name
tempstr = fliplr(deblank(fliplr(deblank(tempstr))));

%if its the last variable name
%char(9) represents a tab
if isempty(find(tempstr == char(9)))
names{index} = tempstr;
tempstr = [];
else
%grab the name
names{index} = tempstr(1:find(tempstr == char(9))-1);
tempstr(1:find(tempstr == char(9))) = [];
end

end
Step 3: Use EVAL statements to copy the column data into the individual elements of the cell array created above.
headercell = getvarnames(headers);
and then, read in your data and assign the names to your data:
%call textread to retrieve the data from your file
[a,b,c,d,e,f,g] = textread('WCorrVols45obs.txt','%d %s %f %f %f %f %f','headerlines',2);
%make the names of your variables the names in the header cell array
eval([headercell{2},' = b'])
eval([headercell{3},' = c'])
eval([headercell{4},' = d'])
eval([headercell{5},' = e'])
eval([headercell{6},' = f'])
eval([headercell{7},' = g'])