How to read the first line (names variables) of a text file ?

Hello,

I didn't find how to read with textscan the first line of my text file(.csv).

I want to read and create a cell with all the names of variables.

Myfile.csv :

Times;Q1;Q2;Q3;Q4;Q5;Q6

01.03.2016 00:00;25.6;7.4;5;235;8;0

01.03.2016 00:15;25.5;7.4:9;456;7;0

01.03.2016 00:30;25.5;7.4;8;234;89;45

Script:

Names = textscan(fid,' %s %s %s %s %s %s %s ','Delimiter',';');

the result is that Names is a 1x7cell but with nothing inside the cell.

I want that Names have all the name's variable inside the cell.

Example:

Names [Times Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 ]

Actually I want the opposite of the headerline option.

Answer 1

[Geoff Hayes]

Jeremy - you can try specifying the number of lines to read (using your format specifier) as

 Names = textscan(fid,' %s %s %s %s %s %s %s ', 1, 'Delimiter',';');

Using R2014a, this will return a 1x7 cell array where each element is a name of one of your variables.

Alternatively, you could just read the first line of your file as

 fid = fopen('myTextFile.csv');
 varNames = strsplit(fgetl(fid), ';');
 fclose(fid);

[Jeremy Schmid]

Thanks a lot for the answer. It works perfectly.