dat file

how do I read a dat file into matlab ? i have a dat file with 5 columns of numbers and i want to read column one and column five thank you in advance

[Walter Roberson]

duplicates http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/1632-dat-file

[Jan]

Is message duplication a new sport?

[Walter Roberson]

Matt and I did a clean-up sweep of known duplicate messages yesterday.

Answer 1

[Matt Tearle]

I'm going to assume that you're talking about a text data file. In that case, use textscan:

fid = fopen('filename.dat');
Data = textscan(fid,'%f%*f%*f%*f%f');
fclose(fid);

You may need to specify other options to textscan, depending on your file formatting (header lines, delimiters, etc).

If the file is binary, then see Walter's answer to #1632