importing numeric data from a text file with column headers, using column headers as vector names

Hi, basically, I need a command/set of commands to do what they illustrate with the wizard here:

http://www.mathworks.co.uk/help/techdoc/import_export/f5-35378.html#bsc58dc

I need to do this for a large number of similarly named (numbered) text files, each containing data values for different parameters so I would prefer to be able to make this part of a script rather than doing manually. All files have columns with unique headers ready to be created as vectors, then I will be able to analyse all similar data in bulk.

i.e I have file1.txt, file2.txt and so on.

Answer 1

[Fangjun Jiang]

If your text file has the consistent format as shown in the link, the importdata() should be enough. Then, maybe you can convert it to a structure that you like.

>> d=importdata('test.txt')

d = 

            data: [4x4 double]
        textdata: {'John'  'Ann'  'Martin'  'Rob'}
      colheaders: {'John'  'Ann'  'Martin'  'Rob'}

>> d.data

ans =

    88.400000000000006  91.500000000000000  89.200000000000003  77.299999999999997
    83.200000000000003  88.000000000000000  67.799999999999997  91.000000000000000
    77.799999999999997  76.299999999999997  78.099999999999994  92.500000000000000
    92.099999999999994  96.400000000000006  81.200000000000003  84.599999999999994

Answer 2

[Lena]

nevermind, pressed 'generate matlab code' on the wizard. output was this:

function importfile(fileToRead1)
%IMPORTFILE(FILETOREAD1)
%  Imports data from the specified file
%  FILETOREAD1:  file to read

%  Auto-generated by MATLAB on 06-Oct-2011 21:31:09

DELIMITER = ';';
HEADERLINES = 1;

% Import the file
newData1 = importdata(fileToRead1, DELIMITER, HEADERLINES);

% Create new variables in the base workspace from those fields.
for i = 1:size(newData1.colheaders, 2)
    assignin('base', genvarname(newData1.colheaders{i}), newData1.data(:,i));
end

[Fangjun Jiang]

That's pretty good. Notice that it uses the assignin() function. Many would say you should avoid assignin(), evalin() and eval() as much as possible. You can run y=uiimport('test.txt') (notice that it has a return argument y) and then generate the code. It will create the data in a structure with the header names as the field names. It's much nicer.