proper way of reading data from text file

The attached file is example data file. I need to store each element of line 2-3, 5-6, 8-9. The original file is bigger than this example. How can I store these numeric values of the related lines?

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

Here is one easy way to get all of that data into one matrix, using fileread and sscanf:

>> str = fileread('data.txt');
>> vec = sscanf(str,'%f');
>> mat = reshape(vec,[],3)'
mat =
  Columns 1 through 7
            4            1         2016         3570            1            1            1
            4            1         2016         3600            2           -4            1
            4            1         2016         3600            3            5            1
  Columns 8 through 14
            4            1         2016       1519.3            0            0   0.00014496
            4            1         2016       6786.1            0            0  -0.00016785
            4            1         2016        11876            0            0  -5.722e-005
  Columns 15 through 20
      0.76367    0.0064783      0.14664    0.0004673      -2656.4   0.00073242
      0.64332    0.0091085     -0.69379    0.0012169      -2656.1   0.00067139
      0.52564    0.0081682     -0.65228     0.001173      -2656.2   0.00073242

To automatically detect how many groups there are you could do something like this:

 >> grp = numel(regexp(str,'^\d\d\s+\d\d\s+\d{4}\s+\d{4}\s*$','lineanchors'))
 grp =
     3
 >> mat = reshape(vec,[],grp)'

Note that this method assumes that your data is all numeric, and that every group contains exactly the same number of values.