Special characters in regexp

I have a large CSV data file which I process by: [num txt] = xlsread('file.csv') Some variables (in string format) stored in 'txt' have spaces and special characters; which I clear using 'regexprep'. But some of the variables have the 'caret - ^' character which cannot be replaced by this way.

Because of which I cannot designate these as variables and assign them the data.

Is there an alternate way of doing this?

Answer 1

[Azzi Abdelmalek]

You can precede ^ with \

Example

str='abcd^ef';
new_str=regexprep(s,'\^','')

[Prasanna Srisailan]

Thanks. That works...

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

Use \^ to represent literal ^ . See also http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/regexptranslate.html

But better yet is to code your expression so that it replaces everything other than specific characters.

regexprep( txt, '[^a-z0-9_]', '' )     %if you want to delete them

If you are looking to turn strings into variable names, you can use http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/genvarname.html

But if you are planning to use them as variable names, them please read http://matlab.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ#How_can_I_create_variables_A1.2C_A2.2C....2CA10_in_a_loop.3F