How do I read a row/column which has only NaNs using importdata?

When I try to import the following data into MATLAB workspace from a space delimited text file 'test_file.txt'

 0 6 NaN NaN NaN 

 3 6 3.7 NaN NaN 

 4 4 NaN NaN NaN 

 NaN NaN NaN NaN

using the command:

importdata('testfile.txt')

I receive the following:

 0.0000 6.0000 NaN  

 3.0000 6.0000 3.7000  

 4.0000 4.0000 NaN

The rows and columns with only NaNs are not read from the file.

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

The ability to read NaN values is not available in MATLAB.

When the input file has rows and columns with all NaNs, then the importdata function does not read all the values from the file.

As a workaround use the TEXTSCAN function to read the data.

data_temp = cell2mat(textscan(fopen('test_file.txt'),'%f %f %f %f %f'));