Matlab Files

Matlab matrices through Version 5 are supported on the following platforms:

      Macintosh

      Windows & OS/2

      Unix  HP/Sun/IBM

     

Matlab datasets for version 7+ are also supported.

 

Standard extension:  mat

 

Reading Matlab Files

Stat/Transfer will automatically recognize an input file's platform of origin on input.

 

Matlab does not write variable names into the file.  Therefore Stat/Transfer makes up a variable name for each column, 'coln', which consists of the string 'col' plus the number of the column.

 

All values in a given matrix are of a single type, usually double precision, although particularly large matrices may be written out by Matlab in integer format, when this is possible.

 

Strings are not supported in Matlab files.

 

Stat/Transfer does not read complex matrices.

 

Writing Matlab Files

On output, Stat/Transfer writes matrices that can be read by any version of Matlab. Datasets can be read on any version higher than seven.

 

Stat/Transfer always writes Matlab files in double precision.

 

Stat/Transfer does not write complex matrices.

 

Missing Data

Matlab supports missing values.

 

Output Variable Types

The output variable type that results from each target variable type is given in the following table:

 

	Target Type	Output Type
	byte int long float double	Double
	date	Date (written as serial day number
	time	Time (written as fraction of day)
	date/time	Date/time (integer gives serial day number, fractional part gives time)
	string	Not written for matrices, written for datasets