A simple and robust method:
>> str2double(num2cell(reshape(' 98 99 99100101102',3,[])',2))
ans =
98
99
99
100
101
102
Or less preferable (because it calls eval):
>> str2num(reshape(' 98 99 99100101102',3,[])')
ans =
98
99
99
100
101
102
And of course you can read the file data as strings:
>> C = textscan(' 98 99 99100101102','%3c','whitespace','');
>> C{1}
ans =
98
99
99
100
101
102
and then use either of the methods as above to convert to numeric.
