Direct-access binary files

Hi,

I need to upload a dataset on MatLab for research purposes, and the best dataset I was able to find apparently is formatted as a direct access binary file, here it comes:

Data files are written as direct-access binary files.
Infofile description:
 
Row 1 longitude resolution (XSTEP)
Row 2 latitude resolution (YSTEP)
Row 3 number of rows (NROWS)
Row 4 number of columns (NCOLS)
Row 5 no data code (NODATA)
Row 6 longitude of the central point of the upper left grid box (ULXCUT)
Row 7 latitude of the central point of the upper left grid box (ULYCUT)
Row 8 record length in bytes (BANDROWBYTES)
Row 9 file name

Now, my question is extremely simple: How do I extract all the informations contained here in a table? With the current information I found online I wasn't able to do anything.

[Walter Roberson]

Could you link to the original documentation?

[Mattia Albertini]

Unfortunately, I am not allowed to share the documentation. I got access to the dataset from the following website:

http://www.isac.cnr.it/climstor/CLIMATE_DATA/index.html

but to be able to view the data you have to ask formally the dataset and state Your purpose.

The message I have written above was contained in a folder with two files: CLINO_PCP_ITA_Y & CLINO_PCP_ITA_Y.inf that is all..

[Walter Roberson]

To confirm, the .inf file is a text file that describes the corresponding file that does not have an extension?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

The .inf file appears to be a text file. Read the first 8 rows of it as numbers and assign to appropriate variables.

After that you would probably use https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/multibandread.html multiband read. Offset would be 0. I suspect that precision is 'single'. Difficult to guess whether it is big-endian or little-endian. bands is probably 1. It is not immediately clear whether the data is in row-major order or column-major order so it is not clear whether you should use [nrows, ncols] or [ncols, nrows] as the size parameter.

I am not sure at the moment what the bandrowbytes would do for you... unless, that is, there are multiple bands

Can you show us a sample .inf file, and show us the size of the corresponding binary file?

My suspicion is that the "no data code" is the value that is stored in the file to indicate that no data is available at that location.

[Mattia Albertini]

Thank you Walter for Your suggestions,

The .inf file is,

XSTEP=0.00833333333333

YSTEP=0.00833333333333

NROWS= 1801

NCOLS= 1801

NODATA= -9999

ULXCUT 5.00416666666667

ULYCUT= 49.99583333333333

BANDROWBYTES= 7204

CLINO_TMM_ITA_Y

[Walter Roberson]

Ok so the data is stored by row and each value is indeed 4 bytes