why "writetable" replaces points with commas ???

Hi

i have this array (12541x763),

and when i use writetable i will get this result

it replaces the points with commas, i wanted to keep the points instead of replacing them with commas,

this is the code I am using :

T = cell2table(DD);

writetable(T, 'myData.xlsx', 'WriteVariableNames', 0)

[dpb]

That's a system locale issue...MATLAB uses the dot internally regardless, but uses local settings for i/o, etc., ...

See

<How-the-matlab-process-uses-locale-settings>

[Peter Perkins]

I suspect that your beef is with Excel, not with MATLAB. writetable is not writing out text, this is a spreadsheet. It's writing out binary floating point.

[Walter Roberson]

@Peter Perkins

this is a spreadsheet. It's writing out binary floating point.

No, it is xlsx, which is zip'd XML files. The numbers are represented as text.

tn = tempname() + ".xlsx"

tn = "/tmp/tp108c97b6_2ccc_4b5b_96bc_165c1e6d1555.xlsx"

SomeVar = [-29.7073; -29.7173734]

SomeVar = 2×1

-29.7073 -29.7174

T = table(SomeVar)

T = 2×1 table
    SomeVar
    _______

    -29.707
    -29.717

writetable(T, tn)
cleanme = onCleanup(@() delete(tn));

[folder, filename, ext] = fileparts(tn)

folder = "/tmp"

filename = "tp108c97b6_2ccc_4b5b_96bc_165c1e6d1555"

ext = ".xlsx"

outdir = fullfile(folder, filename);
unzip(tn, outdir)
cleanme2 = onCleanup(@() rmdir(outdir, 's'));

S = fileread(fullfile(outdir, 'xl', 'worksheets', 'sheet1.xml'));
regexprep(S, '>', '>\n')

ans = 
    '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
     <worksheet xmlns="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/spreadsheetml/2006/main" xmlns:r="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/officeDocument/2006/relationships">
     <dimension ref="A1:A3"/>
     <sheetFormatPr defaultRowHeight="15"/>
     <cols>
     <col min="1" max="1" width="9.140625" customWidth="true"/>
     </cols>
     <sheetData>
     <row r="1">
     <c r="A1" s="0" t="s">
     <v>
     0</v>
     </c>
     </row>
     <row r="2">
     <c r="A2" s="0">
     <v>
     -29.7073</v>
     </c>
     </row>
     <row r="3">
     <c r="A3" s="0">
     <v>
     -29.7173734</v>
     </c>
     </row>
     </sheetData>
     </worksheet>
     '

Notice the text -29.7073 and the text -29.7173734

Answer 1

[Stephen]

"why "writetable" replaces points with commas ???"

It doesn't.

The Open Office XML format (e.g. XLSX) uses only the decimal point within the XML files, regardless of the locale settings (and similarly all functions are actually stored in English, not in the language you might see displayed by Excel on your screen). WRITETABLE correctly creates the files according to the OOXML standard.

The comma you show in your second screenshot is purely an artifact of how the file is displayed in MS Office Excel according to the locale settings on your computer (tip: you can change the OS locale setting for the decimal radix character).

How MS Office Excel displays the decimal radix character has absolutely nothing to do with MATLAB.

Answer 2

[Jeremy Hughes]

@Walter Roberson, @Peter PerkinsYou're both right. Walter is more right.

An XLSX file is a zip file containing XML data which is what the XLSX file is defined as. And as @Stephen Cobeldick points out, the text in the internal XML file is written out with "." as the decimal separator. (You can rename .xlsx files with .zip extenion and extract to see what's literally stored, but it's not easy to understand). Excel renders those number based on the local it sees fit.

If you call readtable on the created file, you're going to see the same numbers come back.

[Peter Perkins]

Walter is right, I'm just out of date.

[Walter Roberson]

The answer would have been different for a .xls file !