MATLAB Programming

6 Data Import and Export
Table6-2
ASCIIDataImportFunctionFeatures(Continued)
Function Data Type Delimiters
Number
of Return
Values
Notes
fscanf
Alphabetic
and numeric;
however,
both types
returned in a
single return
variable
Any
character
One
Part of low-level
file I/O routines.
Requires use of
fopen to obtain
file identifier and
fclose after read.
load Numeric data Spaces
only
One
Easy to use. Use
the functional
form of load to
specify the name
of the output
variable.
textread
Alphabetic
and numeric
Any
character
Multiple
values in
cell arrays
Flexible, powerful,
and easy to
use. Use format
string to specify
conversions.
textscan
Alphabetic
and numeric
Any
character
Multiple
values
returned
to one cell
array
More flexible
than textread.
Also more format
options.
Importing Numeric Text Data
If your data file contains only numeric data, you can use many of the
MATLAB import functions (listed in ASCII Data Import Function Features on
page 6-77), depending on how the data is delimited. If the data is rectangular,
that is, each row has the same number of elements, the simplest command
to use is the load command. (The load functioncanalsobeusedtoimport
MAT-files, the MATLAB binary format for saving the workspace.)
6-78