extract a number from text file

There are contents of a text file , which take the following form.

 ---------
# unique survivor object: RWL                                     
# total count of objects:   4
# COIC lon[deg],lat[deg]:   30.831  43.061
# COIC epoch & time[UTC]: 2004/01/01 00:10:56.918
#
# __central_track__  __position_wrt_COIC__  ___P[-]/ds[km]_of_1D_swath_with_PD=fct(lat)___  _P[-]/ds[km]_of_2D_swath_with_PD=fct(lon,lat)_
# lon[deg] lat[deg]  __ds[km]_  __dt[sec]_  ___P.imp__ ___Pc.min__ ___Pc.avg__ 
   43.040   30.926       8.110     -39.030   1.200E-01   1.367E-06   1.367E-06 
   43.041   30.923       8.020     -38.957   1.739E-03   1.982E-08   1.982E-08 
   43.063   30.818      -1.060      -0.194   4.659E-01   5.308E-06   5.308E-06

I want to save as a text file by extracting only the numbers.(maintain number format) So , I do not know what you want to save by using the fscanf function. I will appreciate to tell me what I should do. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

FID = fopen('file.txt');
form='%f %f %f %f %f %f %f'; % we have 7 columns, then use 7 %f
n = 7; % numbers of lines representing a text 
out = textscan(FID, form,'headerlines', n)
fclose(FID)
cell2mat(out)

Answer 2

[Mischa Kim]

I would probably use the importdata function:

filename      = 'myData.txt';
delimiterIn   = ' ';
headerlinesIn = 7;
A = importdata(filename,delimiterIn,headerlinesIn);

A.data
ans =
    43.0400   30.9260    8.1100  -39.0300    0.1200    0.0000    0.0000
    43.0410   30.9230    8.0200  -38.9570    0.0017    0.0000    0.0000
    43.0630   30.8180   -1.0600   -0.1940    0.4659    0.0000    0.0000

Once you have the data you can save them again in a text file, e.g. fprintf .

Answer 3

[Walter Roberson]

Are the "4" and "30.831" and so on to be extracted? Or only the lon, lat, and so on?

headerlines = 7;

numfields = 7;              %the same only by chance
fmt = repmat('%f', 1, numfields);

fid = fopen('YourFile.txt', 'r');
datacell = textscan(fid, fmt, 'HeaderLines', headerlines, 'CollectOutput', 1);
fclose(fid);
dataarray = datacell{1};