Extract variables from a text data and add them to an array to plot a graph

Hi all,

how do I extract the values from a a text data( see below), and add them into 2 arrays so that I could plot a graph?

the text data looks like this for eg.

distance=10

time=1

distance=20

time=2

distance=32

time=3

distance=45

time=4

.

.

.

I want to creat an array for distance and another array for time, and later plot a graph. can someone help me please?

Many thanks,

Alvin

Answer 1

[Julius Muschaweck]

Inspired by https://uk.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/17177-ini2struct

Your example input is attached as SomeNameValueList.txt.

Calling

rv = ReadNameValueList('SomeNameValueList.txt')
plot(rv.distance, rv.time);

gives you a struct rv with, in this example, fields distance and time:

rv = 

  struct with fields:

    distance: [10 20 32 45]
        time: [1 2 3 4]
        

which you can plot to get

The function just reads these lines sequentially and appends the arrays in the same name fields in the rv.

If you had different input like

hopp=42
hopp=44
topp=32

hopp=21
pi=3.1415
# some comment, ignored
; another comment, ignored

you would get

rv = 

  struct with fields:

    hopp: [42 44 21]
    topp: 32
      pi: 3.1415