Import MANY Excel sheets that have sequential naming with a loop

I'm trying to import excel sheets that are named as say r1 r2 r3 and so on. I'm looking to write a loop to create these dynamic variables so that I don't have to write a code for all 50 of them. I know eval is a bad idea. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

[Benjamin Kraus]

All the commands in MATLAB that read Excel spreadsheets can accept a string naming the file. For example, readtable:

data = cell(1,50);
for f = 1:50;
  name = sprintf('r%d',f);
  data{f} = readtable(name);
end

If your question is about how to create variables named r1, r2, r3, etc. then you have (at least) three options:

1. You can use eval, as you suggested.
2. You can use cell arrays, as I used above.
3. You can use struct, like this:

data = struct();
for f = 1:50;
  name = sprintf('r%d',f);
  data.(name) = readtable(name);
end

The struct will behave like a scope for your new variables, so that your new variables are not created in the base work space.

[Praneeth Arcot]

Thanks! That worked. :)