Format specifiers for TEXTSCAN

I'm confused by the TEXTSCAN documentation regarding the format specifier. In the following call (from code I did not write, but need to understand),

data = textscan(textLine,'%f%f%f%f%*[^\n]');

I get that it will attempt to parse four floats, but what about the rest of the specifier?

If I'm reading the docs correctly, the '%*' means "skip the next field," but no width is given. So does this just skip characters until it encounters the first one excluded by the '[^\n]'? In other words, does this construction just mean "parse four floats, then ignore until end of line"?

Thanks in advance for any clarifications,

-AMM

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

Yes, that is exactly what that construct means, 4 floats and then ignore to newline.

The newline itself would not be consumed by the format, but nearly all of the % specifiers skip leading whitespace so in practice that seldom makes a difference.

[AMM]

Thank you Walter!