how to select columns of data (.dat)

i have data in 732 file (.dat ) n this sample my data..

03:05:00      .000 065.501 01** 4864 0086 0074 +19 
03:06:00       .000 065.501 01** 4862 0095 0074 +19
03:07:00 R- .026 065.501 01** 4862 0105 0074 +19
03:08:00 R- .180 065.504 01** 4864 0105 0074 +19

now i want to plot column 1 (time) with (column 3) divide 60 (rain) ..

1. how i can do that, because i think sometimes matlab read my data just have 8 column (when no rain (R-)). n sometimes matlab read 9 column.

when no rain R- replace with 2 space

2. how i can read all file.

[per isakson]

A loop, "fgetl Read line from file, removing newline characters", and test for "R-" is one possibility.

[Soni huu]

write the scrip please.. i don know what do u mind..

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

You can use textscan(), and at the place where you might have the R- or might not, use %2c as the format. %c does not skip blanks. (Experiment: there is a chance you might need to use %*c%2c instead, to eat the space between fields.)

[Soni huu]

can u try my data please.. iam newbie..

[Walter Roberson]

Do you need the leading 0's preserved? Do you need the '+' to be preserved? Should the two characters shown as '**' in your example data be read in? If so then should the 01** be a single field or two fields?

[Soni huu]

0's= no

+= no

yes the '01**' is single field..

sorry my answer is short. coz my engglis not good..

[Soni huu]

please... help me..

[Soni huu]

i read this to delimited the data, but the data just show in 1 culoumn..

fid = fopen('09-25-2010.dat','r'); InputText=textscan(fid,'%8c%*c%2c%*c%4c%*c%7c%*c%4c%*c%4c%*c%4c%*c%3c'); Intro=InputText{1}; disp(Intro);