fid=fopen('test.txt'); nb_col = 5; t = textscan(fid, repmat('%s ', 1, nb_col),1, 'Delimiter','\t', 'CollectOutput',1); headers = t{1}; % 1 x 17 if exist('OCTAVE_VERSION', 'builtin') t = textscan(fid, repmat('%f ', 1, nb_col), 'Delimiter','\t', 'HeaderLines', 1, 'CollectOutput',1); else t = textscan(fid, repmat('%f ', 1, nb_col), 'Delimiter','\t', 'HeaderLines', 2, 'CollectOutput',1); end values = t{1}; % N x 17 fclose(fid); disp(headers) disp(values)