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4 Importing Data R1

The document discusses various methods for importing data into MATLAB from external files. It describes the load command for simple ASCII files, and file handling functions like fopen, fscanf and fgetl for more complex files. It provides examples of importing data from text files with different structures, and discusses considerations for real-world data files which may have headers or multiple data columns.

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ChongYueSuan
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18 views18 pages

4 Importing Data R1

The document discusses various methods for importing data into MATLAB from external files. It describes the load command for simple ASCII files, and file handling functions like fopen, fscanf and fgetl for more complex files. It provides examples of importing data from text files with different structures, and discusses considerations for real-world data files which may have headers or multiple data columns.

Uploaded by

ChongYueSuan
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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IEA 216/3: Computer

Applications in Industry (Matlab)


Importing Data
Importing Data
• Basic issue:
– How do we get data from other sources into
Matlab?
• Other Issues:
– Where do we get the data?
– What types of data can we import?
• Easy or difficult
load
• Command opens and imports data from a
standard ASCII file into a Matlab variable
• Restrictions
– Data must be constantly sized
– Data must be ASCII
– No other characters
load
• Consider the simple file below
• Create in notepad and save as test1.txt and
text2.txt
• In Matlab, set the path to the correct place (i.e..
where the file is) and type load(‘test1.txt’)
• Now, type x = load(‘test1.txt’)
12
34
52
48
16 32
load
• Now the file is no longer simple because not
every row has the same amount of characters
• Create in notepad and save as test2.txt
• type y = load(‘test2.txt’)
– Error!

12
34
5
48
16 32
load
• Now type in the same thing from test1.txt into
Excel and save the workbook as test1.xls
• type y = load(‘test1.xls’)
– What happens?
• Matlab would display an error
• Forcing the issue with Excel data by changing to
text file and then import. 12
34
52
48
16 32
load
• Works for simple and unstructured code
• Powerful and easy to use but limited
• Will likely force you to manually handle
simplifying data which is prone to error
• More complex functions are more flexible
File Handling
• f* functions are associated with file opening,
reading, manipulating, writing, …
• Basic Functions of Interest for opening and
reading generic files in Matlab
– fopen
– fclose
– fseek/ftell/frewind
– fscanf
– fgetl
fopen
• Opens a file object in Matlab that points to the
file of interest
• fid = fopen(‘filepath’)
– absolute directory + filename
• If file of interest it C:\Andrew\Project_1\file.dat
• >> fid = fopen(‘C:\Andrew\Project_1\file.dat’)
– relative path + filename
• If your Matlab path is set to c:\Andrew\Project_1
• >> fid = fopen(‘file.dat’)
• fid is an integer that represents the file
– Can open multiple files and Matlab will assign unique
fids
fclose
• When you are done with a file, it is a good idea
to close it especially if you are opening many
files
– >> fclose(fid)
What is a File?
• A specific organization of data
• In Matlab it is identified with a fid
• Location is specified with a pointer that can be
moved around
fid

Pointer

file_name
Moving the Pointer
• We already know how to assign a fid (fopen)
• To find where the file is pointing:
– >> x = ftell(fid)
• To point somewhere else
– >> fseek(fid,offset,origin)
– E.g., fseek(fid,10,0) %no need for an output
• Move pointer in file fid by offset relative to origin
– Origin can be beginning, current, end of file
– Offset is in bytes
– Output is ans = 0

• To point to the beginning


– frewind(fid)
– E.g., frewind(fid); %no output
Getting Data
• Why move the pointer around?
– Get somewhere in the file from where you want data
• fscanf(fid,format,size)
• Format
– You have to tell Matlab the type of data it should be
expecting in the text file so that it can convert it
• ‘%d’(integers), ‘%f’ (decimal numbers), ‘%c’(single
character)
• Data must be of the same data type specified.
• Size
– You can specify how to organize the imported data
• [m,n] – import the data as m by n
• Be careful because Matlab will mangle your data and not tell
you
• >> A = fscanf(fid,‘%d’,[5,2]);
Lets Try It
• Open test1.txt using the fopen command
– Remember to save the fid, we will need it
• Create a variable with the data of test1.txt using fscanf() without
specifying dimensions – a vector data is created.
• Now create another variable y with the data of test1.txt in it by using
fscanf (do not simply copy x)
– What happens here? No data is loaded into x.
– Need to set file pointer to beginning using frewind(fid)
• Now use the size option to import the data with 5 rows and 2
columns
• Try the same thing with test2.txt
– It works and fills in the blanks where the last element is 0. This is
powerful but dangerous because missing data would just be ignored.
Getting Data
• fgetl returns the next line of the file as a
character array, line by line.
• You may need to convert these to numbers.

>> fid1 = fopen(‘test1.txt’);


>> a_str = fgetl(fid1)
a_str = 1 2
>> a_num = str2num(a_str)
a_num = [1 2]
Realistic File
• A realistic file of data will have header information,
labeled columns and other information embedded within
it.
– See pm10_data.txt (in elearning.usm.my)
• Option 1: Manually go through deleting this information
and import using load or fopen commands.
• Option 2: Have Matlab delete and format available data
on the fly by creating a custom script (.m file).
Realistic File
• Powerful function textread can be used to
input almost any text file
• Handles:
– Opening the file
– Ignoring Header Information (‘headerlines’)
• Will work for most applications
• >> [USM,S18] = textread(‘pm10_data.txt’,’%f%f’,’headerlines,1);
– Create 2 variables “USM” and “S18” with their corresponding data from
pm10_data.txt.
Summary
• Lots of options to load files
– load for basics
– fscanf for complex
– textread for most things
– xlsread for Excel worksheets
• >> test1_excel = xlsread(‘test1.xls’)
• Also saving Excel sheets as “tab” delimited

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