There are a couple of options how to do this. You can read the entire file in as strings, find the line you want, and regexp the numbers from the line, or you can choose to search through the entire thing by each line with fgetl, and look for a match, then extract the number based on the position of the numbers. Below are two examples, they will need some tweaking if you plan to use them.
% Regexp method
text = fileread('mypath\output_matlab.txt');
number = regexp(text,'Pile-head deflection\s+.\s+(\d.\d+) meters','tokens');
% fgetl method
fid = fopen('mypath\output_matlab.txt');
line = fgetl(fid);
count = 1;
while ~isnumeric(line)
if strcmp(line(1:9),'Pile-head')
number = str2num(line(30:40));
break
else
line = fgetl(fid);
count = count + 1;
end
end
