Wrong data array when reading a text file in Octave - octave

Question

I want to read a text file, which has two columns and that looks as follows.
-0,090 26,295
-0,342 26,294
-0,594 26,294
-0,846 26,295
-1,098 26,294
-1,368 26,296
-1,620 26,296
-1,872 26,296
I'm using the following code to read it and to create the data array.
filename = 'C:\Users\file location\test.txt';
delimiter = '\t';
formatSpec = '%s%s%[^\n\r]';
fileID = fopen(filename,'rt');
dataArray = textscan(fileID, formatSpec, 'Delimiter', delimiter, 'ReturnOnError', false, 'EndOfLine', '\r\n');
fclose(fileID);
What I get is an array like this.
dataArray =
{
[1,1] =
{
[1,1] = -0,090
[2,1] = -0,594
[3,1] = -1,098
[4,1] = -1,620
[5,1] =
}
[1,2] =
{
[1,1] = 26,295
[2,1] = 26,294
[3,1] = 26,294
[4,1] = 26,296
[5,1] =
}
[1,3] =
{
[1,1] = -0,342 26,294
[2,1] = -0,846 26,295
[3,1] = -1,368 26,296
[4,1] = -1,872 26,296
[5,1] =
}
}
So apparently Octave takes only every second row of my original columns to create my array and combines the skipped values to a third column.
What I actually expect is an array like this.
dataArray =
{
[1,1] =
{
[1,1] = -0,090
[2,1] = -0,342
[3,1] = -0,594
[4,1] = -0,846
[5,1] = -1,098
[6,1] = -1,368
[7,1] = -1,620
[8,1] = -1,872
}
[1,2] =
{
[1,1] = 26,295
[2,1] = 26,294
[3,1] = 26,294
[4,1] = 26,295
[5,1] = 26,294
[6,1] = 26,296
[7,1] = 26,296
[8,1] = 26,296
}
}
I assume it's a problem with formatSpec. Is it somehow possible to adjust my code so that I get my expected array?

Answer 1

The main issue here is that commas are used instead of dots in your file.
My advice would be to forget about elaborate textscanning, and simply preprocess your files instead, to replace the offending commas with dots. This can be done easily on a linux terminal, however it's easy enough to do in octave as well if you prefer, e.g.
% Read in file as string
Data_str = fileread('test.txt');
% Correct commas to dots
CorrectedData_str = strrep( Data_str, ',' , '.' );
% Write data back to a file (I'm surprised there's no equivalent "filewrite" ...)
f = fopen( 'corrected_test.txt', 'w' );
fprintf(f, CorrectedData_str);
fclose(f);
Once you have preprocessed all your data, importing is then as simple as:
MyData = importdata('corrected_test.txt');