I think that if you're simply looking to see if there is data in the cell, you can just use the ISEMPTY function. Something like this:
xlswrite('test.xls',magic(2))
if isempty(xlsread('test.xls','Sheet1','A4'))
disp('The cell is empty')
else
disp('The cell contains a value')
end
Although, it would probably be better, since you're using XLSREAD anyway, to read the data into a variable.
What is your goal? Maybe I can be of more help if I better understand what you are trying to do.
