Problem when importing a TXT file into MATLAB with "readtable". Text and numbers are between single quotes...

Hello everyone,

I am facing a big issue when trying to read a table from a TXT file. The data appears to be normal in Excel and in Wordpad but not in Matlab. Why does not Matlab recognize numerical data and import it as so?

So far I have the following sequence:

data=readtable('example.txt);

And then I get the following (see picture).

How can I get rid of the single quotes and treat the numerical data (from column 3 on) normally?

I would really appreciate your help in this regard.

Best,

Joseba

Answer 1

[madhan ravi]

T=table2cell(data);
T(:,3:end)=cellfun(@str2double,T(:,3:end),'un',0)

[Joseba Moreno]

Dear Madhan ravi,

Thank you really much for your answer, it worked perfectly!

Now I would also like to convert the first two columns "Datum" and "Zeit" to a format I can use for plotting these against the numerical data (from column 3 on). How can I do that?

Thank you very much again.

Best,

Joseba

[madhan ravi]

It would be better if you ask a separate question by providing all the necessary details, as I have answered your original question.

Answer 2

[Peter Perkins]

The real problem is that there's something funny in your file that you are not telling us about. Part of it may be using comma as the decimal separator (which I think can be addresses using detectimportoptions, part of which is the specific date format, which again can be addressed with detectimportoptions.

But I'm guessing that the main issue is that all the numeric values in your file are quoted.

Normally, readtable in a recent version of MATLAB should read data like what you have with little or no guidance, and you certainly should not have to call str2double all over the place. A SMALL snippet of you file would help others in diagnosing your problem.