Import Data

Section 5.3 Import Data

There are several ways to import data: MATLAB’s Import Wizard, the load() command, or the fscanf() command we just studied. Let’s take a closer look at the load() command.

Remember how difficult it was to use the fscanf() command to read tabular data into a variable and preserve the shape of the original table? The problem comes from the fact that MATLAB populates an array column-by-column (but data from the file is read row-by-row).

The load() command is less flexible than the fscanf() command but it makes it much easier to read from files whose data is a table. The load() command will import such data into a single array variable (if you don’t specify a variable name then it will be the same as the filename). For example, if we want to load the data from our above file numbers.txt, we can use the load() command:

>> load 'numbers.txt'
numbers =
    23.5000   34.3000   33.1000
    63.9000  234.0000   34.2000
    54.3000   34.2000   67.9000
    234.3000  22.5000   34.7000
    78.5000   57.4000   44.0000
    ...

There is no need to open the file prior to loading its data, the load() command does it all. It is a very useful command for simple formats. You also do not need to close the file after loading the data.

You can specify the name of the variable in which the file’s contents are stored:

>> fname='numbers.txt';
>> data = load(fname)

data =
    23.5000   34.3000   33.1000
    63.9000  234.0000   34.2000
    54.3000   34.2000   67.9000
    234.3000  22.5000   34.7000
    78.5000   57.4000   44.0000
    ...

Introduction to MATLAB: As seen in ENGS 20

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Section 5.3 Import Data