Read data from text file

Hi, i have a text file with contents:

26/09/2013,16:04:40 2412 928.0 49.94930
25/09/2013,14:24:30 2412 914.0 -999999

The file above contains a date, time and 3 numbers per line.

I want to read this into an array of dates, times, and x, y, z for the numbers where each element in the array is each line of the file.

Is there an easy way to do this (if so how?) or do i have to read the line as a String and parse it?

Answer 1

[Matt Kindig]

You should be able to do it with textscan

fid = fopen('/path/to/your/file.txt', 'rt');
output = textscan(fid, '%s %s %f %f %f', 'Delimiter', ' ,');
fclose(fid);
%you can then break this out into individual variables
dates = output{1};   %you can further use datenum() to convert to a date number
times = output{2};
x = output{3};
y = output{4};
z = output{5};

[Edward]

This is brilliant, i want the output as a structure so for example, struct.x, struct.y etc how do i make it so i output an array of structures struct(2) rather than a structure of arrays struct.x(2)

I hope this makes sense!

[Matt Kindig]

Some of the basics of working arrays of structures (and structures of arrays) can be found here: http://blogs.mathworks.com/videos/2008/04/22/matlab-basics-array-of-structures-vs-structures-of-arrays/