Q: matlab-like load for ascii files?

[Francesco Potorti`]

   Does someone have a modified version of the "load" command that can
   read straight matrices from ascii-files, that is, for which no header
   like e.g.

    # name: x
    # type: matrix
    # rows: 10
    # columns: 2

   is necessary? Any help is welcome, thank you in advance.

This is not an answer, rather a workaround.  This is a script I wrote
for adding headers to column vectors:

-------------------------octavehead----------------
if [ $# != 2 ]
then    echo usage: $0 file varname
        exit 1
fi

if [ ! -w $1 ]
then    echo $0: cannot write file $1
        exit 2
fi

set -e

tmpf=octh$$
mv $1 $tmpf
echo \# name: $2 >> $1
echo \# type: matrix >> $1
echo \# rows: `wc -l $tmpf` >> $1
echo \# columns: 1 >> $1
cat $tmpf >> $1
rm $tmpf
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