A function for reading .mat files from MATLAB v7.3+ in Python. Doesn't support all MATLAB types yet.

load-matlab-hdf5.py

import h5py
import numpy as np


def convert_item(item, file):
    cls = item.attrs['MATLAB_class'].decode('utf-8')
    if cls == 'char':
        return ''.join(map(chr, item))
    elif cls == 'uint8':
        return np.array(item, dtype=np.uint8)
    elif cls == 'double':
        return np.array(item)
    elif cls == 'cell':
        res = np.empty(item.shape, dtype='O')
        for ind in np.ndindex(*item.shape):
            res[ind] = convert_item(file[item[ind]], file)
        return res
    else:
        raise RuntimeError('Unsupported MATLAB class: {}'.format(cls))

        
def read_mat(filename):
    data_file = h5py.File(filename)
    return {key: convert_item(data_file[key], data_file) for key in data_file.keys() if key != '#refs#'}


data = read_mat('data.mat')