Importing a text file with two headers and data so that the headers are the variable names

I have a large amount of data and usually just manually import it in by deleting the units row (2nd row) and using the first row as the variable name. But I would like to make a script to make my life easier, but have wasted too much time already trying to figure it out.

Basically, is there an easy script to import a .txt file, delete the second row and use the first row as the variable names of the numerical data arrays?

[TAB]

Use fopen(), textread(), textscan() functions.

What is content of your first row? How it is formated?

Please post example of your data and expected output, which make us easier to suggest related code.

[Andrew]

here is an example of the data, I do not care about the units, and would like the the column headers to be the varible names of the array

Temp_pre_bpv_Value Air_pres_filtered Actual_fuel_value

K kPa mg

708.1 289 264.5

707 289.2 263.5

708.1 289.7 263.6

707 289.9 263.7

708.1 289.9 263.7

709.1 289.1 170.2

709.1 285.6 0

Thank You.

[Andrew]

Basically I would like this:

BPV_Temp

Kelvin

708

709

800

To look Like this:

BPV_Temp

708

709

800

Answer 1

[Teja Muppirala]

There are a lot of ways to deal with reading in data. This is one imaginative way of doing it, but I think it should work. (Here I assume each value is separated by a single space, and each value is read in as a double). Maybe someone has a simpler idea.

fid = fopen('myfile.txt','r');

firstline = fgetl(fid); 
numvars = numel(strread(firstline,'%s'));
fgetl(fid); %<-- Skip the second line
data = textscan(fid,repmat('%f',1,numvars));
eval(['[' strrep(firstline,' ',',') '] = deal(data{:})'])

fclose(fid);

[Andrew]

this is perfect, thank you much.