Re: clever trick for reading .mat

[Steve Eddins <eddins(at)mathworks.com>]

Craig Markwardt <craigmnet@cow.physics.wisc.edu> writes:

> Wendy Ermold <wermold@apl.washington.edu> writes:
> > Hello!
> > 
> > I would really love it if someone out there has an idl script for
> > reading matlab created .MAT files. I understand that matlab doesn't want
> > us to know how to do this, but I bet someone out there has managed it.
> > Your help would be greatly appreciated!
> 
> I haven't heard of such a thing for IDL.  I do have code which reads
> IDL SAVE files, but they are not the same thing.
> 
> You might be better off asking the Octave mailing list, after first
> checking the list archives.  Octave is very similar to Matlab.
> 
> Also, the first thing I found on Google when searching for "matlab
> file format" was a document from Mathworks specifying the format.
> Some secret!  

Yup!  Here it is:

  http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/pdf_doc/matlab/matfile_format.pdf

Both MATLAB 4 and MATLAB 5 MAT-formats are completely documented.  Have fun.

-- 
Steve Eddins
The MathWorks, Inc.
eddins@mathworks.com
http://www.mathworks.com