readlines
Description
S = readlines(
creates a string array from a file with additional options specified by one or more
name-value pair arguments. For example, filename
,Name,Value
)'EmptyLineRule','skip'
skips
empty lines.
Examples
Create String Array from Text File
Create a 4-by-1 string array by reading each line from a text file as a separate string.
lines = readlines("badpoem.txt")
lines = 4x1 string
"Oranges and lemons,"
"Pineapples and tea."
"Orangutans and monkeys,"
"Dragonflys or fleas."
Ignore Empty Lines in Text File
View the contents of the file capital_cities.txt
.
type 'capital_cities.txt'
Boston, Massachusetts Albany, New York Sacramento, California Columbus, Ohio Santa Fe, New Mexico
Create a 5-by-1 string array by skipping the empty lines while reading capital_cities.txt
. The array still contains the space characters from the input, but not the empty lines.
lines = readlines("capital_cities.txt","EmptyLineRule","skip")
lines = 5x1 string
" Boston, Massachusetts"
"Albany, New York"
" Sacramento, California"
"Columbus, Ohio"
" Santa Fe, New Mexico"
Remove Whitespace Surrounding Text
View the contents of the file capital_cities.txt
.
type 'capital_cities.txt'
Boston, Massachusetts Albany, New York Sacramento, California Columbus, Ohio Santa Fe, New Mexico
Specify the value of 'WhitespaceRule'
as 'trimleading'
to remove the whitespace before each line of text. The array no longer contains the leading space characters from the input, but still preserves the empty lines.
lines = readlines("capital_cities.txt","WhitespaceRule","trimleading")
lines = 10x1 string
"Boston, Massachusetts"
""
"Albany, New York"
""
"Sacramento, California"
""
"Columbus, Ohio"
""
"Santa Fe, New Mexico"
""
Input Arguments
filename
— Name of file to read
character vector | string scalar
Name of the file to read, specified as a character vector or a string scalar.
Depending on the location of your file, filename
can take on one
of these forms.
Location | Form | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Current folder or folder on the MATLAB® path | Specify the name of the file in
Example:
| ||||||||
File in a folder | If the file is not in the current folder or in a folder on the
MATLAB path, then specify the full or relative path in
Example:
Example:
| ||||||||
Internet URL | If the file is specified as an internet uniform resource locator
(URL), then Example:
| ||||||||
Remote Location | If the file is stored at a remote location, then
Based on the remote location,
For more information, see Work with Remote Data. Example:
|
Data Types: char
| string
Name-Value Arguments
Specify optional pairs of arguments as
Name1=Value1,...,NameN=ValueN
, where Name
is
the argument name and Value
is the corresponding value.
Name-value arguments must appear after other arguments, but the order of the
pairs does not matter.
Before R2021a, use commas to separate each name and value, and enclose
Name
in quotes.
Example: 'EmptyLineRule','skip'
specifies to omit empty lines while
importing the file.
LineEnding
— End-of-line characters
{'\n','\r','\r\n'}
(default) | character vector | string scalar | cell array of character vectors | string array
End-of-line characters, specified as the comma-separated pair consisting of
'LineEnding'
and a character vector or string. The character
vector must be '\r\n'
or it must specify a single character. Common
end-of-line characters are a newline character ('\n'
) or a carriage
return ('\r'
). If you specify '\r\n'
, then the
importing function treats any of \r
, \n
, and the
combination of the two (\r\n
) as end-of-line characters.
The default end-of-line sequence is \n
, \r
,
or \r\n
, depending on the contents of your file.
Example: 'LineEnding','\n'
Example: 'LineEnding','\r\n'
Data Types: char
| string
| cell
Whitespace
— Characters to treat as whitespace
{' ','\b','\t'}
| character vector | string scalar
Characters to treat as whitespace, specified as a character vector or string scalar containing one or more characters.
Example: 'Whitespace',' _'
Example: 'Whitespace','?!.,'
WhitespaceRule
— Procedure to handle whitespace
'preserve'
(default) | 'trim'
| 'trimleading'
| 'trimtrailing'
Procedure to handle whitespace surrounding a line in the data, specified as
'preserve'
, 'trim'
,
'trimleading'
, or 'trimtrailing'
.
Whitespace Rule | Behavior |
---|---|
'preserve' | Preserve the leading and trailing whitespace. |
'trim' | Remove the leading and trailing whitespace. |
'trimleading' | Remove the leading whitespace only. |
'trimtrailing' | Remove the trailing whitespace only. |
Example: 'WhitespaceRule','trim'
Data Types: char
| string
EmptyLineRule
— Procedure to handle empty lines
'read'
(default) | 'skip'
| 'error'
Procedure to handle empty lines in the data, specified as
'skip'
, 'read'
, or
'error'
.
Empty Line Rule | Behavior |
---|---|
'read' | Import the empty lines. |
'skip' | Skip the empty lines. |
'error' | Display an error message and abort the import operation. |
Example: 'EmptyLineRule','skip'
Data Types: char
| string
Encoding
— Character encoding scheme
''
(default) | 'UTF-8'
| 'system'
| 'ISO-8859-1'
| 'windows-1251'
| 'windows-1252'
| ...
Character encoding scheme associated with the file, specified as the
comma-separated pair consisting of 'Encoding'
and
'system'
or a standard character encoding scheme name.
'Encoding','system'
uses the system default encoding.
When you do not specify any encoding, the function uses automatic character set detection to determine the encoding when reading the file.
Data Types: char
| string
WebOptions
— HTTP
or HTTPS
request options
weboptions
object
HTTP
or HTTPS
request options, specified as
a weboptions
object. The
weboptions
object determines how to import data when the
specified filename
is an internet URL containing the protocol type
"http://"
or "https://"
.
Version History
Introduced in R2020b
See Also
writelines
| readtable
| readtimetable
| readmatrix
| readvars
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