Read in only certain numbers from a txt file.

Hello All,

I have a bunch of text files where i only need to extract the 11 digit numbers from the txt file. I am currently struggling to only pull those numbers out. I am able to pull out either all the data, all the numbers but not the exact numbers I want. I attached a example of what the text documents I am trying to extract from. I am basically just trying to create a cell array of the 11 digit numbers.

Thanks

J

Answer 1

[Scott MacKenzie]

This creates a cell array of the 11-digit numbers in your file...

fileName = 'Example.txt';

n = [];
fid = fopen(fileName);
while ~feof(fid)
    line = fgetl(fid);    
    if length(line) == 11
        n =  [n; str2double(line) ];
    end
end
fclose(fid);
c = num2cell(n)

Output:

c =

9×1 cell array

{[12345678901]}

{[12345678902]}

{[12345678903]}

{[12345678904]}

{[12345678905]}

{[12345678906]}

{[12345678907]}

{[12345678908]}

{[12345678909]}

Answer 2

[Bob Thompson]

What does your code look like so far? What are you using to extract the numbers?

Off the top of my head, I recommend using something like regexp to extract the numbers. Here's a quick swag at what it would look like:

11nums = regexp('Example.txt','/D(/d/d/d/d/d/d/d/d/d/d/d)/D','tokens');

This has not been tested.

In theory it looks for an isolated set of numbers, with 11 digits.

Answer 3

[Thomas Jensen]

Hi John,

Unfotunatelly your input file does not follow a pattern, so your script needs to read line-by-line and check if the line is an array of characters containing 11 digits.

Best regards,