MATLAB: Hi, i’m having trouble reading multiple excel files in a loop and performing simple calculation of the mean for a specific column

loopmultiple excel files

%Here is my code – I have three excel files named bec 1, bec 2, bec 3 saved to folder 'loop'. I want to calculate the mean of column 1(named 'potato') ,sheet1 in each file in a loop. I don't really need to store the data in an array but if anyone can help make this code work I would be very appreciative :). 
cd('C:\Users\rebec\Desktop\loop')
numfiles=3
data=[];
for fileidx = 1:numfiles
filedata = readmatrix(sprintf('bec %d.xlsx',fileidx));
if fileidx == 1
data = zeros(size(filedata, 1), numfiles);
end
data(:, fileidx) = filedata.potato;
end
numfiles =
3
Dot indexing is not supported for variables of this type

Best Answer

readtable is better than readmatrix here
folder_path = 'C:\Users\rebec\Desktop\loop';    % your path
num_files = 3;  % number of excel files
data_mean = zeros(1, num_files);    % initialize mean data with 0s
for ii =1:num_files
    % form file name
    file_name = fulfile(folder_path, sprintf('bec %d.xlsx',ii));
    % read data from file
    T = readtable(file_name, 'sheet', 'Sheet1');
    % calculate mean and assign to data_mean
    data_mean(ii) = mean(T.potato);
end
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