retrieve mat-file version

128 views (last 30 days)
David T_
David T_ on 30 Aug 2012
Commented: Walter Roberson on 23 Aug 2017
Hello community,
I want to use the MATFILE command to access specific data in .mat-files. Is there a function which returns true if the .mat-file format is 'v7.3' and false otherwise?
I know you can check this in the command window using
type myfile.mat
However you cannot use TYPE within a function, which is what I want to do.
Thanks in advance
David

Accepted Answer

Daniel Shub
Daniel Shub on 30 Aug 2012
You can use evalc to capture the output of type
function tf = getmatv(fname)
x = evalc(['type(''', fname, ''')']);
tf = strcmp(x(2:20), 'MATLAB 7.3 MAT-file');
end
  4 Comments
Daniel Shub
Daniel Shub on 30 Aug 2012
I was really answering the "you cannot use TYPE within a function" part of the question. I am not sure you want to use TYPE, but I wanted to provide a way to do it.
Walter Roberson
Walter Roberson on 23 Aug 2017
You can also use fileread() to pull in the entire file, and then examine the first few characters of it.

Sign in to comment.

More Answers (1)

Tom
Tom on 30 Aug 2012
type(FileName)
should work fine, where FileName is a string containing the file name, e.g.
FileName='myfile.mat'

Products

Community Treasure Hunt

Find the treasures in MATLAB Central and discover how the community can help you!

Start Hunting!