How to read in a text file that has two different formats.

How can I read in a text file that does not have a consistent format for every row of data?

Here is an exert of the file I need to read.

2014-08-05 08:56:09.936: From 10.10.30.3: bytes=60 seq=06bf ID=48f6 time=32.110ms
2014-08-05 08:56:10.435: From 10.10.30.3: bytes=60 seq=06c0 ID=48f7 time=32.160ms
2014-08-05 08:56:10.903: Timeout waiting for seq=06bc
2014-08-05 08:56:10.934: From 10.10.30.3: bytes=60 seq=06c1 ID=48f8 time=32.475ms

Notice that the third row is not like the others. The following code works when I don't have these occasional rows with the "Timeout" message.

fid=fopen('ping.txt')
PingFile=textscan(fid, '%s %s From%s bytes=%d seq=%s ID=%s time=%f %*[^\n]')

How do I capture the information in these occasional rows, and read in the entire file?

[José-Luis]

Will the message always be: "Timeout waiting..."?

[Kevin]

Yes, the message will always be "Timeout waiting for seq=", followed by a hexadesimal number.

Answer 1

[Kevin]

Final conclustion based on the answers from dbp and Haderlein. Thank you both for your help.

AllData=textread('ping.txt','%s','delimiter','\n');
IsPing=cellfun(@isempty,strfind(AllData,'Timeout'));
PingData =AllData(IsPing);
TimeOut = AllData(~IsPing);
PDfn=@(s) textscan(s, '%s %s From%s bytes=%d seq=%s ID=%s time=%fms');
TOfn=@(s) textscan(s, '%s %s Timeout waiting for seq=%s');
PingCell=cellfun(PDfn,PingData,'uniformoutput',false);
ToutCell=cellfun(TOfn,TimeOut,'uniformoutput',false);

Answer 2

[dpb]

I'd do it a little differently...bring the file into memory and eliminate the bum lines, then scan from memory.

>> file=textread('kevin.txt','%s','delimiter','\n');  % textread is handy sometimes, too...
>> file=file(cellfun(@isempty,strfind(file,'Timeout'))) % get rid of timeout lines
file = 
  '2014-08-05 08:56:09.936: From 10.10.30.3: bytes=60 seq=06bf ID=48f6 time=32.110ms'
  '2014-08-05 08:56:10.435: From 10.10.30.3: bytes=60 seq=06c0 ID=48f7 time=32.160ms'
  '2014-08-05 08:56:10.934: From 10.10.30.3: bytes=60 seq=06c1 ID=48f8 time=32.475ms'

Nos create a function handle for the scanning...

>> fn=@(s) textscan(s, '%s %s From%s bytes=%d seq=%s ID=%s time=%fms')
fn = 
  @(s)textscan(s,'%s %s From%s bytes=%d seq=%s ID=%s time=%fms')
>> cellfun(fn,file,'uniformoutput',false)
ans = 
  {1x7 cell}
  {1x7 cell}
  {1x7 cell}

[Kevin]

Thank you dpb. This works very well. I do, however, want to retain the information in the "Timeout" rows. I don't know anything about using the "@" simble, so I'm not sure how to modify your code.

[Michael Haderlein]

Just modify the following way:

isdata=cellfun(@isempty,strfind(file,'Timeout'));
data=file(isdata);
timeout=file(~isdata);

Then apply the fn function on data instead of file. The timeout information can be read out by similar means.