MATLAB: How do you insert the date and time as the file name when using xlswrite

Question

Hi all,

I have seen solutions to this question but they don't appear to work when I try implementing them.

I want to create an Excel file using xlswrite, the data for the file are in a matrix called 'a'. In the matrix are data called from a server at specific times by a for loop. The loop runs for 1 hour and the halts. I want to write these data before the process starts again. I don't want to overwrite the file on the next run so I want to use xlswrite to export the data and by using the date and time in the file name each file will have a unique name.

I call the date and time using the datestr(now) function.

%%This writes a file with my data, but the file name is 'FileName'

FileName=sprintf('FileName_%s.xlsx',datestr(now)); xlswrite('FileName', a)

%%This does not work FileName=sprintf('FileName_%s.xlsx',datestr(now)); xlswrite(FileName, a)

Any help in doing this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Lucas

Answer 1

Hi Lucas, that's because datestr(now) creates characters like colon (:) which are not allowed for file names. You should define your own date and time Format without These characters. Try

Filename = sprintf('test_%s.xlsx', datestr(now,'mm-dd-yyyy HH-MM'));
xlswrite(Filename, a)

That will work.