Python equivalent of Matlab textscan

Question

I'm working with transferring some Matlab code to Python. I'm relatively new to Python and am unsure of a Python equivalent of Matlab's textscan method. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

If you're translating Matlab to Python, I'll assume you're already using NumPy.

In that case, you can use np.loadtxt (if no values are missing) or np.genfromtxt (if there are missing values: I'm not sure whether Matlab's textscan handles that).

Give us a few more details if you need more help!

Answer 2

Example of conversion of MATLAB's textscan to Python + NumPy's np.loadtxt:

Let our data file results.csv contain:

0.6236,sym2,1,5,10,10
0.6044,sym2,2,5,10,10
0.548,sym2,3,5,10,10
0.6238,sym2,4,5,10,10
0.6411,sym2,5,5,10,10
0.7105,sym2,6,5,10,10
0.6942,sym2,7,5,10,10
0.6625,sym2,8,5,10,10
0.6531,sym2,9,5,10,10

Matlab code:

fileID = fopen('results.csv');
d = textscan(fileID,'%f %s %d %d %d %d', 'delimiter',',');
fclose(fileID);

Python + NumPy code:

fd = open('results2.csv','r')    
d = np.loadtxt(fd,
           delimiter=',',
           dtype={'names': ('col1', 'col2', 'col3', 'col4', 'col5', 'col6'),
           'formats': ('float', 'S4', 'i4', 'i4', 'i4', 'i4')})
fd.close()

For more info on types, see Data type objects (dtype).

Answer 3

you have to look for Numpy and py2mat. If my understanding of textscan() is correct you could just use open()