write cell array of combined string and numerical input into text file

Question

Consider the following:

DateTime = {'2007-01-01 00:00';'2007-02-01 00:00';'2007-03-01 00:00'};
Headers = {'Datetime','Data'};
Dat = [100,200,300];

Data = [DateTime,num2cell(Dat')];
Final = [Headers;Data];

How would I write the data in 'Final' into a tab delimited text file. I know how to use fopen, fprintf and so on when the variable is composed of solely numerical inputs but am struggling to solve this problem. I have tried:

fid = fopen('C:\Documents\test.txt','wt');
fprintf(fid,'%s\t%s\n',Final{:});
fclose(fid);

However, this does not generate a text file that is in the same format as that generated in matlab. How can this problem be solved?

+1 for the easily workable code you provided

Acorbe
– Acorbe

2013-01-08 12:13:55 +00:00
Commented Jan 8, 2013 at 12:13 — Acorbe
– Acorbe, Commented Jan 8, 2013 at 12:13

Acorbe · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-08 16:45:03Z

6

This solution gives what I think you need; some remarks which I hope to be useful are on side

 DateTime = {'2007-01-01 00:00';'2007-02-01 00:00';'2007-03-01 00:00'};
 Headers = {'Datetime','Data'};
 Dat = [100,200,300];


 % // In the way you used fprintf it expects just strings ('%s\t%s\n'), 
 % // therefore Data should be composed exclusively by them.
 % // Numbers are converted to strings by using num2str
 % // by using cellfun we iteratively convert every element of num2cell(Dat')
 % // in strings, obtaining a cell
 Data = [DateTime,cellfun(@num2str, num2cell(Dat'), 'UniformOutput' , false )]; 
 Final = [Headers;Data];

 fid = fopen('test.txt','wt');

 % // this iterates fprintf on the cell rows, giving you the output
 cellfun(@(x,y) fprintf(fid,'%s\t%s\n',x,y),Final(:,1),Final(:,2));       
 fclose(fid);

result

 Datetime   Data
 2007-01-01 00:00   100
 2007-02-01 00:00   200
 2007-03-01 00:00   300

EDIT:(from comments) in the general case of a N-columns cell, you can simply go for a for loop, e.g.

for i = 1 : size(Final,1)
    fprintf(fid,'%s ', Final{i,:} );
    fprintf(fid,'\n');
end

(same result, but not depending on the number of columns).

edited Jan 8, 2013 at 16:45

answered Jan 8, 2013 at 12:09

Acorbe

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3 Comments

KatyB Over a year ago

Great answer, although what would happen if the cell array had more than 2 column e.g. 10 columns, would that involve writing Final(:,1),Final(:,2),Final(:,3) and so on. There must be a method where this works without specifying the individual columns?

Acorbe Over a year ago

@Kate, sure. Indeed what cellfun does is just wrapping a for loop, in this case for the rows. What you can do is to write your own for loops involving the columns also. I'm changing the answer for the general case.

Acorbe Over a year ago

@Kate, please have a look.

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