How to selectively import a column from a text file containing lot of headers

I have a text file containing 57 header values and I want to selectively import 2 columns only. These are "X-Centroid(µm)"(column 43) and Y-Centroid(µm) (column 44). The number of rows is variable depending on the number of features detected in an image. Currently, I am copy-pasting my data from text file into excel and using xlsread to import data into matlab. This is a time consuming step that I went to get rid of. I want to import data from text file directly as I need to automate this step for a no of text files. I am using textscan but I am fairly new to matlab and having hard time figuring it out. Please advice.

Answer 1

[Ken Atwell]

You can import all 57 columns with the following:

 txt=fileread('1.TXT');
 % Read 57 numeric columns of data
 textscan(txt, repmat('%f', [1 57]), 'Delimiter', '\t', 'HeaderLines', 1);

If you only want to import those two rows, things get a tad more complicated:

 txt=fileread('1.TXT');
 % Skip 42 columns of numeric data, read two columns, then ignore the rest
 format=[repmat('%*f', [1 42]) '%f%f%*[^\n]'];  
 textscan(txt, format, 'Delimiter', '\t', 'HeaderLines', 1)

I hope this helps.

[nitin arora]

Thanks a lot Ken. It works. You rock. You saved me a lot of time.