NPX_ReadMeta.m

% =========================================================
% Parse ini file returning a structure whose field names
% are the metadata left-hand-side tags, and whose right-
% hand-side values are MATLAB strings. We remove any
% leading '~' characters from tags because MATLAB uses
% '~' as an operator.
%
% If you're unfamiliar with structures, the benefit
% is that after calling this function you can refer
% to metafile items by name. For example:
%
%   meta.fileCreateTime  // file create date and time
%   meta.nSavedChans     // channels per timepoint
%
% All of the values are MATLAB strings, but you can
% obtain a numeric value using str2double(meta.nSavedChans).
% More complicated parsing of values is demonstrated in the
% utility functions below.
%
function [meta] = NPX_ReadMeta(binName, path)

    % Create the matching metafile name
    [dumPath,name,dumExt] = fileparts(binName);
    metaName = strcat(name, '.meta');

    % Parse ini file into cell entries C{1}{i} = C{2}{i}
    fid = fopen(fullfile(path, metaName), 'r');
% -------------------------------------------------------------
%    Need 'BufSize' adjustment for MATLAB earlier than 2014
%    C = textscan(fid, '%[^=] = %[^\r\n]', 'BufSize', 32768);
    C = textscan(fid, '%[^=] = %[^\r\n]');
% -------------------------------------------------------------
    fclose(fid);

    % New empty struct
    meta = struct();

    % Convert each cell entry into a struct entry
    for i = 1:length(C{1})
        tag = C{1}{i};
        if tag(1) == '~'
            % remake tag excluding first character
            tag = sprintf('%s', tag(2:end));
        end
        meta = setfield(meta, tag, C{2}{i});
    end
end % ReadMeta