I think you should open a dat file in an editor first to understand the structure first then check the delimiter. Make sure you use the appropriate MATLAB functions.

For numeric data make sure you use load. data = load('filename.dat');

This will directly load the data into matrix.

For custom delimiter use textscan fid = fopen('filename.dat', 'r');

data = textscan(fid, '%f %f %f', 'Delimiter', ','); % Adjust format specifiers as needed

fclose(fid);

For matrix data use separate columns col1 = data(:, 1); % First column

col2 = data(:, 2); % Second column

% Continue as needed

For data in the cell array use textscan col1 = data{1}; % First column

col2 = data{2}; % Second column

For tables col1 = tableData.Var1; % Access first variable/column

col2 = tableData.Var2; % Access second variable/column

After all this you can save your data as mat file for easier use. save('filename.mat', 'data');

You can also export as a new writematrix(data, 'newfile.dat');