How do you open .mat files in Octave?

user1257724 picture user1257724 · Mar 28, 2012 · Viewed 70.1k times · Source

I have a ".mat" file that I want to open and see the contents of. Since I don't have MATLAB, I downloaded GNU's Octave. Since I'm working on Mac's TERMINAL, I'm not exactly sure how to open the ".mat" file so that I can see the contents. Can anyone help me with this? Thanks!

Answer

Chris A. picture Chris A. · Mar 28, 2012

Not sure which version of .mat file you might have, or whether Octave keeps up with the latest Matlab formats.

Here's a link that might be a good start.

Bottom line is that you can say: load MyMatFile.mat right at the Octave prompt.

In case you wind up having to write code to read the .mat file ever: I've done this before and it was not difficult, but was time-consuming. Mat file format for 2012a