file io - Matlab: How to read in numbers with a comma as decimal separator?

Question

I have a whole lot (hundreds of thousands) of rather large (>0.5MB) files, where data are numerical, but with a comma as decimal separator. It's impractical for me to use an external tool like sed "s/,/./g". When the separator is a dot, I just use textscan(fid, '%f%f%f'), but I see no option to change the decimal separator. How can I read such a file in an efficient manner?

Sample line from a file:

5,040000    18,040000   -0,030000

Note: There is a similar question for R, but I use Matlab.

Answer 1

With a test script I've found a factor of less than 1.5. My code would look like:

tmco = {'NumHeaderLines', 1      , ...
        'NumColumns'    , 5      , ...
        'ConvString'    , '%f'   , ...
        'InfoLevel'     , 0      , ...
        'ReadMode'      , 'block', ...
        'ReplaceChar'   , {',.'} } ;

A = txt2mat(filename, tmco{:});

Note the different 'ReplaceChar' value and 'ReadMode' 'block'.

I get the following results for a ~5MB file on my (not too new) machine:

• txt2mat test comma avg. time: 0.63231
• txt2mat test dot avg. time: 0.45715
• textscan test dot avg. time: 0.4787

The full code of my test script:

%% generate sample files

fdot = 'C:empcDot.txt';
fcom = 'C:empcCom.txt';

c = 5;       % # columns
r = 100000;  % # rows
test = round(1e8*rand(r,c))/1e6;
tdot = sprintf([repmat('%f ', 1,c), '
'], test.'); % '
tdot = ['a header line', char([13,10]), tdot];

tcom = strrep(tdot,'.',',');

% write dot file
fid = fopen(fdot,'w');
fprintf(fid, '%s', tdot);
fclose(fid);
% write comma file
fid = fopen(fcom,'w');
fprintf(fid, '%s', tcom);
fclose(fid);

disp('-----')

%% read back sample files with txt2mat and textscan

% txt2mat-options with comma decimal sep.
tmco = {'NumHeaderLines', 1      , ...
        'NumColumns'    , 5      , ...
        'ConvString'    , '%f'   , ...
        'InfoLevel'     , 0      , ...
        'ReadMode'      , 'block', ...
        'ReplaceChar'   , {',.'} } ;

% txt2mat-options with dot decimal sep.
tmdo = {'NumHeaderLines', 1      , ...
        'NumColumns'    , 5      , ...
        'ConvString'    , '%f'   , ...
        'InfoLevel'     , 0      , ...
        'ReadMode'      , 'block'} ;

% textscan-options
tsco = {'HeaderLines'   , 1      , ...
        'CollectOutput' , true   } ;


A = txt2mat(fcom, tmco{:});
B = txt2mat(fdot, tmdo{:});

fid = fopen(fdot);
C = textscan(fid, repmat('%f',1,c) , tsco{:} );
fclose(fid);
C = C{1};

disp(['txt2mat  test comma (1=Ok): ' num2str(isequal(A,test)) ])
disp(['txt2mat  test dot   (1=Ok): ' num2str(isequal(B,test)) ])
disp(['textscan test dot   (1=Ok): ' num2str(isequal(C,test)) ])
disp('-----')

%% speed test

numTest = 20;

% A) txt2mat with comma
tic
for k = 1:numTest
    A = txt2mat(fcom, tmco{:});
    clear A
end
ttmc = toc;
disp(['txt2mat  test comma avg. time: ' num2str(ttmc/numTest) ])

% B) txt2mat with dot
tic
for k = 1:numTest
    B = txt2mat(fdot, tmdo{:});
    clear B
end
ttmd = toc;
disp(['txt2mat  test dot   avg. time: ' num2str(ttmd/numTest) ])

% C) textscan with dot
tic
for k = 1:numTest
    fid = fopen(fdot);
    C = textscan(fid, repmat('%f',1,c) , tsco{:} );
    fclose(fid);
    C = C{1};
    clear C
end
ttsc = toc;
disp(['textscan test dot   avg. time: ' num2str(ttsc/numTest) ])
disp('-----')