9.11: Choosing the Right File I/O Tool

Fundamentals of MATLAB Programming · LibreTexts

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    There is not one file I/O command that is best for every situation. The best choice depends on the file and what you need to do with it.

    Situation

    Good choice

    Why

    Plain numeric data with equal columns on every row

    load / save or readmatrix / writematrix

    Simple and efficient

    Mixed text and numeric data in a text file

    textscan or readcell

    Can handle different data types

    Need to inspect or process each line individually

    fgetl

    Reads one line at a time

    Need carefully formatted output

    fprintf

    Controls spacing, decimals, labels, and line breaks

    Spreadsheet with mostly numbers

    readmatrix / writematrix

    Reads and writes numeric arrays

    Spreadsheet with mixed data

    readcell or readtable / writecell or writetable

    Handles labels, text, and numbers

    This page titled 9.11: Choosing the Right File I/O Tool was last modified on Tue, 30 Jun 2026 02:12:03 GMT and is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Zara Noroozi.