How Can I read the contents of .mat files ?
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    farzad
      
 on 10 Oct 2014
  
    
    
    
    
    Commented: Walter Roberson
      
      
 on 19 Sep 2025
            Hi All
I have an m file and a set of .mat files that are connected to this m file and m file loads their data , I need to know whether I can open and extract all the data of these .mat files and check what they contain
thank you very much
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More Answers (3)
  Star Strider
      
      
 on 10 Oct 2014
        You can check the contents of .mat files and load specific data from them with the matfile function.
4 Comments
  Walter Roberson
      
      
 on 19 Sep 2025
				There is a limitation, that matfile() cannot be used with -v4 .mat files.
vers = ["v4", "v6", "v7", "v7.3"];
nvers = length(vers);
rng(12345);
data = randi([0 255], 1, 50, 'uint8');
for K = 1 : nvers
    v = vers(K);
    fname = "data_" + v + ".mat";
    save(fname, "data", "-" + v );
    try
        whos('-file', fname);
    catch ME
        fprintf('error doing whos for "%s"', fname);
    end
    try
        obj = matfile(fname);
        whos(obj);
    catch ME
        fprintf('error doing matfile for "%s"', fname)
    end
end
  Hunt3r5o4
 on 18 Sep 2025
        You can use 
matObj = matfile("path");
This gives all the variables within the .mat file. 
variable = matObj.variable;
This gives you a specific variable within the .mat file.
disp(variable);
This will display the variable.
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