How to call a .txt file containing dates in format "01-JAN-2019" and time against three other independent variables to MATLAB?

Ive attached the file i'd like to call and then use to plot further into multiple plots, however when I use "fileread('data.txt')", I get all the data in a 1xn matrix that I cannot use to plot.

[Rik]

You didn't parse the text. You told Matlab to treat your text file as text, so it did that. There are two options: process the char vector to convert the characters to the data type you need, or use a function that will automagically do that for you.

[Akshay Saini]

@RikHi thank you for the reply, how exactly do I convert the characters to a different data type? And how do I determine the correct data type I need for my plot to work? Thank you.

[Rik]

If you have trouble with Matlab basics you may consider doing the Onramp tutorial (which is provided for free by Mathworks).

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

filename = 'https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/uploaded_files/584765/data.txt';

t = readtable(filename, 'Format', '%s%s%s%s%C%C%C', 'readvariablenames', false);
t.Time = datetime(strcat(t{:,1},'-',t{:,2},'-',t{:,3},{' '},t{:,4}));
t.Properties.VariableNames(5:7) = {'Status1', 'Status2', 'Status3'};
plot(t.Time, t.Status1)

Not the greatest of plots, but the data cannot be treated as numeric as it contains entries such as InVld and NoData and <Samp and down and pwrfail and ca1 and it is difficult to know how to plot those.