Handling of large string array

Hi,

I am dealding with a 22,000,000 x 1 string array, which causes Matlab real problems. I import the data from a .csv file of about 1gig size. But when I save it in Matlab as a .mat file, it blows up to over 9gig. How can I save this vector more efficiently?

Best

[per isakson]

I cannot reproduce your problems on R2013b,64bit,Win7

    >> str = char( randi([32,112],22e6,1) );
    >> save( 'd:\tmp\test.mat', 'str' )

creates a file that is 18MB.

Answer 1

[dpb]

Cast to char() if not (default Matlab storage is double). This will be 4:1 reduction as Matlab character is 16-bit. If you're using a ASCII code, you can save another factor of 2 by converting to uint8 but Matlab may then get confused if try to use the data as character.