MATLAB: Import excel data from web doesn’t work

readtablewebsavexlsread

Hi all,
I need to import some data downloaded from an excel url. To do it, I download the excel on my pc (even if i don't need the file) and than I use readtable function to read the the excel file. This is my code:
reit_excel = websave('FTSE NAREIT All REIT index','https://www.reit.com/sites/default/files/returns/MonthlyHistoricalReturns.xls');
nareit_reit = readtable('FTSE NAREIT All REIT index.xls','FileType','spreadsheet');
The output of this code is a NaN columns. Someone knows why and how to fix the problem? Many thanks!
Regards,

Best Answer

The main issue is that MATLAB doesn't recognise what Sheet name within that spreadsheet that you want to import. This gets you a lot further:
data = readtable('FTSE NAREIT All REIT index.xls','Sheet','Index Data')
However, the result is still pretty messy. A rather cleaner table can be obtained as follows.
% Try to auto detect import options
opts = detectImportOptions('FTSE NAREIT All REIT index.xls','Sheet','Index Data');
% Some variables get incorrectly imported as char.  Change that to double
opts = setvartype(opts,'RealEstate50TM','double');
opts = setvartype(opts,'Var17','double');
opts = setvartype(opts,'Var18','double');
opts = setvartype(opts,'Var19','double');
opts = setvartype(opts,'Var20','double');
opts = setvartype(opts,'Var21','double');
% Do the import
data = readtable('FTSE NAREIT All REIT index.xls',opts);
% Delete the empty variables
data = removevars(data,{'Var8','Var15','Var22','Var29','Var36'});
% Rename the variables to something more readable
data.Properties.VariableNames = {'Date','All_REITs_Total_Return','All_REITs_Total_Index',...
   'All_REITs_Price_Return','All_REITs_Price_Index','All_REITs_Income_return','All_REITs_Dividend_Yield',...
   'Composite_Total_Return','Composite_Total_Index',...
   'Composite_Price_Return','Composite_Price_Index','Composite_Income_return','Composite_Dividend_Yield',...
   'RE50_Total_Return','RE50_Total_Index',...
   'RE50_Price_Return','RE50_Price_Index','RE50_Income_return','RE50_Dividend_Yield',...
   'All_Equity_Total_Return','All_Equity_Total_Index',...
   'All_Equity_Price_Return','All_Equity_Price_Index','All_Equity_Income_return','All_Equity_Dividend_Yield',...
   'Equity_Total_Return','Equity_Total_Index',...
   'Equity_Price_Return','Equity_Price_Index','Equity_Income_return','Equity_Dividend_Yield',...
   'Mortgage_REITs_Total_Return','Mortgage_REITs_Total_Index',...
   'Mortgage_REITs_Price_Return','Mortgage_REITs_Price_Index','Mortgage_REITs_Income_return','Mortgage_REITs_Dividend_Yield'
   };
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