Question

I have a CSV file which contains numbers,date and text. I have to extract the column which contain the text.

For example, sample csv file look like

1-1-2000,1,2.3,TRUE    
2-1-2000,1,2.3,FALSE

1. I want to extract the column containing the TRUE/FALSE values.

2. I want to convert the TRUE into 1 and FALSE into 0.

Please suggest some functions and sample code to do this

Answer 1

You can try this:

[~,~,~,bools] = textread('filename.csv', '%s%d%f%s', 'delimiter', ',');

bools = cellfun(@strtrim, bool, 'uniformoutput', false);
bools = strcmp(bools, 'TRUE');

the line with strtrim might not be necessary if you know beforehand that there are never any trailing spaces. The line with strcmp outputs a logical array for all entries that string-compare to the literal TRUE, which implies that all other entries are false. Meaning:

1-1-2000,1,2.3,TRUE    
2-1-2000,1,2.3,BANANAS

would produce the same logical vector. If you also want to explicitly compare to the string literal FALSE, use something like this:

a = NaN(size(bools));
a(strcmp(bools, 'TRUE'))  = 1;
a(strcmp(bools, 'FALSE')) = 0;
if ~any(isnan(a))
    bools = logical(a);
    clear a
else
    %# handle the error
end