Reading specific column from CSV file in matlab

Question

I am trying to read a CSV file in matlab. I just want to read the second column but the code below prints out everything on CSV file. What parameters or functions I have to introduce to make it read just the second column

FILENAME = 'C:\Users\Desktop\Results.csv';

fid = fopen(FILENAME, 'rt');
a = textscan(fid, '%s', 'HeaderLines',1,'Delimiter',',');
fclose(fid);
celldisp(a)

Answer 1

There are several ways:

1. Using cvsread:
   Assuming you have N rows in the file¹:

   a = csvread( FILENAME, 0, 1, [0 1 N-1 1 ] );
   

2. You might also consider xlsread

   a = xlsread( FILENAME, 'B:B' );  
   

   See specific example on the xlsread doc.

3. Another option is dlmread

   a = dlmread( FILENAME, ',', [0 1 N-1 1] );
   

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¹ - A nice (and fast) way to count the number of lines in the file in Matlab can be found in this answer by Rody Oldenhuis.