matlab error when using xlsread in a loop

Question

I'm trying to read multiple csv files, in a loop, and then perform some analysis on all o them.

I'm using MatlabR2015b and Excel 2016.

the problem is that at the second call to xlsread I get the following error:

>>xlsread('R:\Experiments\ResoFreq_vis_BEH\TapFlick_vis_BEH\Data\s01_rr\1_fingerTapping_s01_rr.csv')

Error using xlsread (line 251)

No explanation no message, nothing. after some debugging I've found it fails at the following command:

Excel.workbooks.Open(filename, 0, readOnly);

in the openExcelWorkbook.m file which is somewhere down the stack of xlsread.

I found very few people with the same problem and their solution was to force the EXCEL32 process to close using the following code:

[~, computer] = system('hostname');
[~, user] = system('whoami');
[~, alltask] = system(['tasklist /S ', computer, ' /U ', user]);
excelPID = regexp(alltask, 'EXCEL.EXE\s*(\d+)\s', 'tokens')
for i = 1 : length(excelPID)
  killPID = cell2mat(excelPID{i});
  system(['taskkill /f /pid ', killPID]);
end

However, this does not work for me.

after somemore digging I tried to manually look at the csv im trying to open, while debugging, meaning after stopping at the breakpoint at the Excel.workbooks.Open call, I used:

actxserver('Excel.Application')
ans.Workbooks.Open(filename)

which gave me the following error:

Error using Interface.000208DB_0000_0000_C000_000000000046/Open

Which is associated to Workbooks when looking at the excel process through the matlab inspector.

That is all the information I've managed to find related to my problem.

the only thing that works for me at the moment is running xlsread, then manually closing the excel process from the task manager, then running it again, until I have all my data, and then analyze, which is not a possible considering the amount of files I need to load.

I cannot use csvread as my files have mixed types, and every other function i've tried does not read the csvs properly (I have a field which looks like this "[,...,]" and that field keeps getting interpreted as multiple rows in every function except with xlsread) and thus I feel like I have no option but to fix xlsread somehow.

I would gladly provide anymore information that is necessary to solve this

thanks.

Answer 1

you should use csvread instead of xlsread, becuase xlsread just read .xls and .xlsx files.