MATLAB: How to preserve original column headings (variable names) when using writetable

column headingsMATLABvariable namesvariabledescriptionwritetable

When importing spreadsheets containing invalid variable names, Matlab changes them and stores the original column headings in the VariableDescriptions property of the table. How can I write my table to a file and use the original variable names on export? In other words, how can I export T so that output_table.xlsx is the same as input_table.xlsx?

Reprocessing the exported file as a string is not really an option, because my original file will have multiple sheets.

T = readtable('input_table.xlsx'); % Matlab changes "Column 1" to "Column1"
writetable(T,'output_table.xlsx');

Best Answer

As of 2019b, table variable names don't need to follow normal variable naming rules. This allows for a couple of fixes:

T = readtable('input_table.xlsx','PreserveVariableNames',true);

T.Properties.VariableNames={'Column 1';'Column 2'}

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MATLAB: Export Data to excel spreadsheet from Structure Array Dynamically (Without Knowing the field Names)

There are many useful functions to know when working with structures in MATLAB. First is the function fieldnames which will return a cell array of all the names of all the fields in the structure e.g.

given a structure:

foo.bar_1 = 6;
foo.bar_2 = 'hello';
foo.bar_3 = [1,2,3];

the command:

names = fieldnames(foo);

will make the variable names =

{'bar_1'; 'bar_2'; 'bar_3'}

Once you have the field names in a cell array you can access the data in the structure in a loop e.g.

for( i = 1:length(names) )
    % get the data
    tempData = foo.(names{i});
    % do something with the data
end

this uses the fact that you can access the fields of a structure using a string, or a variable containing a string, if you wrap it in parenthesis.

Actually sending this data to an excel sheet will depend greatly on the format of your data and how you want to store it in the spreadsheet. To do this you should use the function xlswrite.

MATLAB: Changing the name of the sheet in excel

You can use ActiveX directly from MATLAB:

xlswrite('test.xls',1) % # create test file
e = actxserver('Excel.Application'); % # open Activex server
ewb = e.Workbooks.Open('c:\test\test.xls'); % # open file (enter full path!)
ewb.Worksheets.Item(1).Name = 'new name'; % # rename 1st sheet
ewb.Save % # save to the same file
ewb.Close(false)
e.Quit

Be careful while testing, it overwrite the original file. Make a backup.

Best Answer

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MATLAB: Export Data to excel spreadsheet from Structure Array Dynamically (Without Knowing the field Names)

MATLAB: Changing the name of the sheet in excel

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