How to import excel file into a specific format in matlab

Hi,

It is my first attempt to import an excel file to matlab and I'm having some trouble doing it the way I need.

I have a file consisting of 3 columns:

Sales Item 1 Sales Item 2 and Sales Item 3

each one with 80 lines, so it is something like:

Item 1 Item 2 Item 3
2 4 12
3 8 71
4 42 12
12 31 10

I need to import it into matlab in the following format:

X=[2 4 12;3 8 71;4 42 12;12 31 10]

and so on...

Does anybody know if it is possible?

Thanks in advance !

[Mohammad Abouali]

could you upload a sample Excel file?

[Gabriel]

Here ! Thanks !

Answer 1

[dpb]

[x,hdr]=xlsread('yourExcelfile.xls');

will leave you with the numeric data in the array x arranged as it is in the spreadsheet and the text headers in hdr

[Gabriel]

Didn't work. In your example I get to import just the columns. I need them to be imported formated as I stated before.

Example:

X=[Line1column1 Line1columsn2 Line1Columsn3; Line2column1 Line2columsn2 Line2Columsn3; Line3column1 L3ne1columsn2 Line3Columsn3... up to line 80column3]

[dpb]

If, as you describe, the Excel file is N rows of 3 numeric columns, then it will work to return it in that shape...

>> [x,txt]=xlsread('gabe.xls')
x =
   2     4    12
   3     8    71
   4    42    12
  12    31    10
txt = 
  'Item 1'    'Item 2'    'Item 3'
>>

If, otoh, you have all the data as text in a single column of cells, it's probably easiest to fix the spreadsheet instead.

[Gabriel]

It is in N rows of 3 numeric columns.

The thing is: I want it to return the data in the format I described before. I want it to return: [2 4 12;3 8 71;4 42 12; 12 31 10]. All the lines of the file together. It may be because I am completelly new to this, but with your data, I can only get columns if I type 'X, Item 1', for example. I really want it to return the whole lines x columns in the format I described.

A lot of thanks for your help, mate !

[dpb]

Try the newer table data object then...

http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/table.html

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

>> x = xlsread('cluster_test.xlsx')

x =

     2     2     7
     4     6     7
     6     4     1
   121    53     4
     2     1    12

Looks like what you need to me.

If it doesn't look like the right format to you then use

mat2str(x)

and see if the printable representation is what you expect.