merging two structures using join()

I've imported two xlsx files via importdata() and I'm trying to merge them with join() using a common key 'PitID'. The imported structures each contain data, textdata, and colheaders objects. In my case all colheaders are variable names, while data and textdata contain their respective values.

Help?

>> pits = importdata('E:\Sedgwick\Data\GPS\pits.xlsx') field = importdata('E:\Sedgwick\Data\Field\field.xlsx')

pits =

          data: [99x7 double]
      textdata: {100x7 cell}
    colheaders: {'Latitude'  'Longitude'  'Pit_ID'  'GPS_Height'  'Datafile'  'GPS_Date'  'samp_status'}

field =

          data: [12x22 double]
      textdata: {13x22 cell}
    colheaders: {1x22 cell}

>> %% Confirm structure headers pits.colheaders field.colheaders

ans =

    'Latitude'    'Longitude'    'Pit_ID'    'GPS_Height'    'Datafile'    'GPS_Date'    'samp_status'

ans =

Columns 1 through 10

    'PitID'    'labID'    'date'    'hor_top'    'hor_bot'    'genetic'    'primgen'    'subgen'    'colortype'    'hue'

Columns 11 through 20

    'value'    'chroma'    'grade'    'size'    'type'    '2grade'    '2size'    '2type'    'rootquan'    'rootsize'

Columns 21 through 22

    'roottype'    'co2'

>> data = join(pits,field,'PitID'); Undefined function 'join' for input arguments of type 'struct'.

Answer 1

[Jan]

Do you mean join, which is part of the Statistics Toolbox and operates on dataset arrays?

[Sam]

Hi Jan, I think you're implying that the structure conferred by importdata() is not a dataset array and thus can't be used with join()? That makes sense, but my aim is to combine a dataset of spatial points with two datasets of attributes such that the attribute names are passed into the output as headers - or at least as the first row in the output.

Do you know of another way to do this? Perhaps using a different import function, or a merge function compatible with the importdata() structure?

[Jan]

You can use the dataset command to import data from an XLSX file also, and then join works.

[Sam]

Thanks. This worked.

http://www.mathworks.com/help/stats/create-a-dataset-from-a-file.html#btfist1