retrieve mat-file version

Hello community,

I want to use the MATFILE command to access specific data in .mat-files. Is there a function which returns true if the .mat-file format is 'v7.3' and false otherwise?

I know you can check this in the command window using

type myfile.mat

However you cannot use TYPE within a function, which is what I want to do.

Thanks in advance

David

Answer 1

[Daniel Shub]

You can use evalc to capture the output of type

function tf = getmatv(fname)
  x = evalc(['type(''', fname, ''')']);
  tf = strcmp(x(2:20), 'MATLAB 7.3 MAT-file');
end

[David T_]

Yep... forgot about EVALC

Thanks

[Tom]

I'd have thought there'd be an easier way to determine it? You can also do it through fscanf

fname='myfile.mat';
fclose('all')
[fid,e]=fopen(fname);
S=fscanf(fid,'%c');
fclose(fid)
S(1:regexp(S,',','once')-1)

but it still seems overly complicated.

[Daniel Shub]

I was really answering the "you cannot use TYPE within a function" part of the question. I am not sure you want to use TYPE, but I wanted to provide a way to do it.

[Walter Roberson]

You can also use fileread() to pull in the entire file, and then examine the first few characters of it.

Answer 2

[Tom]

type(FileName)

should work fine, where FileName is a string containing the file name, e.g.

 FileName='myfile.mat'