Import name/value parameters from a text file to a struct (or cell array)

Hi,

Matlab has all sorts of sophisticated functionality for importing datasets stored in text files, with plenty of options to control input behavior, variable names, replacement options, etc. etc.

What I am looking to do seems to need some of this functionality, but is fairly simple, and what I have found so far seems to be overkill, or doesn't work well. Can someone advise a better way?

Goal: Take a simple name/value list of parameters in a text file and write to a struct (preferred) or cell array, with datatypes appropriately converted and variable names stored as fields.

Example:

Input

myParamFile.txt:

dt  .01
x0  0
y0  0
flag1   false
flag2   true
inputArray  [1 0 0; 0 1 0; 0 0 1]
jobname 'myjob'

Output:

myStruct = 

  struct with fields:

            dt: 0.0100
            x0: 0
            y0: 0
         flag1: 0
         flag2: 1
    inputArray: [3×3 double]
       jobname: 'myjob'
       

The point here is that whatever process/function that converts the input to the output will recognize the datatype and convert it appropriately, ideally creating struct fields based on the variable names in the textfile.

I could certainly build a custom parser to do this, but it seems that there is enough built-in Matlab functionality designed to work with text data I am curious if there is an existing and/or simpler way.

Thanks!

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

As far as I am aware there isn't anything inbuilt. But you can do something like this:

>> str = fileread('myparamfile.txt');
>> tkn = regexp(str,'(\S+)\s+([^\r\n]*)','tokens');
>> tkn = vertcat(tkn{:}).';
>> [num,idx] = cellfun(@str2num,tkn(2,:),'uni',0);
>> idx = [idx{:}];
>> tkn(2,idx) = num(idx);
>> out = struct(tkn{:})
out = 
            dt: 0.01
            x0: 0
            y0: 0
         flag1: 0
         flag2: 1
    inputArray: [3x3 double]
       jobname: ''myjob''

[J G]

Thanks Stephen! This works great.