Read and sort data in a text file

Greetings,

I have a text/ascii file that looks like below. The first line contains the variables names, and all lines beyond the first contain a mix of numerical and string values. The data is not stored in any specifc/ascending/descending order. What I'd like to do is load all the data into arrays (or structures?) for further manipulation/processing. All variables (beyond the first line) are separated by commas.

I've tried the FID=fopen(...) and then read one line at a time, but that's painfully slow as some of the data files are rather large.

X, Y1, Y2, Y3, Txt1, Txt2, Slope

22,17,31.5,Positive,False,-1

24,11,42.5,Flat,False,-1

17,13,33.0,Flat,True,1

...

Answer 1

[Mohammad Sami]

You can use the readtable function. It will autodetect the variable types.

tab = readtable('myfile.txt');
tab = sortrows(tab,{'col1' 'col2'});

Answer 2

[Djamil Boulahbal]

Thank you very much Mohammad. Works perfectly.

Answer 3

[Djamil Boulahbal]

One more question. When I open the file in a Text Editor, a typical line looks like this

636494112010000000,58.25,1,58.25,20,58.24,87,False,False,1

When I load the same file with the ReadTable function, that same line becomes

6.3649e+17 58.25 1 58.25 20 58.24 87 'False' 'False' 1

The problem is with the very first entry. In the original ASCII file, it is a long integer, but when it's loaded in Matlab, it becomes a double in scientific notation.

The questions is: How do I, when loading the file with ReadTable, ensure the first number loads as an integer. ?

I guess I can convert it afterwards, but is that a fool-proof way ?

That first number (the one I'm trying to keep as integer) is in units of 'ticks' i.e., computer clock cycles