reading CSV files with multiple rows of strings and multiple rows of floats

The first four rows [1:4] of my csv are strings. The remaining rows [5:inf] are numerical data. I need to import all rows, preferably into a table. How can I do this with readtable (or other function). I don't see any way in the opts file. I am probably missing something.

[Stephen23]

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/readcell.html

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/writecell.html

[Star Strider]

I covered that earlier.

OP decided to use Python instead.

Answer 1

[Steven Lord]

All the data in a variable in a table must be the same type. You can't have one where the first four rows are text and the next four rows are numbers.

Depending on what you're planning to do, reading the first four rows into a table then reading in the next rows as a separate table, transforming each row of each of those tables into variables using rows2vars, and then concatenating them side-by-side may be suitable for your needs.

t1 = table("abc", "def", "ghi", "jkl", RowNames = "id")

t1 = 1×4 table
          Var1     Var2     Var3     Var4 
          _____    _____    _____    _____

    id    "abc"    "def"    "ghi"    "jkl"

t2 = array2table(magic(4))

t2 = 4×4 table
    Var1    Var2    Var3    Var4
    ____    ____    ____    ____

     16       2       3      13 
      5      11      10       8 
      9       7       6      12 
      4      14      15       1 

t1a = rows2vars(t1)

t1a = 4×2 table
    OriginalVariableNames     id  
    _____________________    _____

          {'Var1'}           "abc"
          {'Var2'}           "def"
          {'Var3'}           "ghi"
          {'Var4'}           "jkl"

t2a = rows2vars(t2)

t2a = 4×5 table
    OriginalVariableNames    Var1    Var2    Var3    Var4
    _____________________    ____    ____    ____    ____

          {'Var1'}            16       5       9       4 
          {'Var2'}             2      11       7      14 
          {'Var3'}             3      10       6      15 
          {'Var4'}            13       8      12       1 

T = [t1a(:, "id"), t2a(:, 2:end)]

T = 4×5 table
     id      Var1    Var2    Var3    Var4
    _____    ____    ____    ____    ____

    "abc"     16       5       9       4 
    "def"      2      11       7      14 
    "ghi"      3      10       6      15 
    "jkl"     13       8      12       1 

Answer 2

[Kip]

Thanks to all for these hints. Trouble is, at the end I need to write these back to a file of the same format (columns with a mixture of characters and numerical values). I found I can do this pretty easily with Python and will go with that. Thank you!