Programming

Supported File Formats

The table below shows the file formats that you can read or write from MATLAB along with the functions that support each format.

File Format	File Content	Extension	Functions
MATLAB formatted	Saved MATLAB workspace	.mat	load, save
Text	Text	any	textscan
	Text	any	textread
	Delimited text	any	dlmread, dlmwrite
	Comma-separated numbers	.csv	csvread, csvwrite
Extended Markup Language	XML-formatted text	.xml	xmlread, xmlwrite
Audio	NeXT/SUN sound	.au	auread, auwrite
	Microsoft WAVE sound	.wav	wavread, wavwrite
Movie	Audio/video	.avi	aviread
Scientific data	Data in Common Data Format	.cdf	cdfread, cdfwrite
	Flexible Image Transport System data	.fits	fitsread
	Data in Hierarchical Data Format	.hdf	hdfread
Spreadsheet	Excel worksheet	.xls	xlsread, xlswrite
	Lotus 123 worksheet	.wk1	wk1read, wk1write
Graphics	TIFF image	.tiff	imread, imwrite
	PNG image	.png	same
	HDF image	.hdf	same
	BMP image	.bmp	same
	JPEG image	.jpeg	same
	GIF image	.gif	same
	PCX image	.pcx	same
	XWD image	.xwd	same
	Cursor image	.cur	same
	Icon image	.ico	same

Using the Import Wizard with Binary Data

Saving and Loading MAT-Files

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