The X Collection

The X collection is a set of Matlab programs that make it easier for the user to interact with Excel sheets. Matlab offers already many ways of exchanging data with Excel. For instance 'xlsread' and 'xlswrite' allow the programmer to read data from and write data into Excel worksheets. But these programs are inefficient when a large number of read and write operations have to be repeated because they build a connection to the Excel COM server and then release this connection again with every operation.

The X collection splits that up. The programmer creates a connection to Excel (with XConnect), then does whatever he or she has to do (XWrite, XRead, XOpenBook, XGetSheet, XSaveBook etc), and then releases the Excel connection again (XDisconnect). Depending on the type of work, the gain in speed range from none at all to orders of magnitude.
The following programs are included: XConnect, XDisconnect, XListOpenBooks, XGetBook, XNewBook, XOpenBook, XFetch, XSaveBook, XSaveAllBooks, XCloseBook, XCloseAllBooks, XListSheets, XGetSheet, XAddSheet, XRead, XWrite, XWriteDates, XDateFmt, XRangeAddress.

Their meanings should be more or less obvious. They all come with help, so that you user should be able to figure out how to use these programs fairly easily. There is also a short documentation (PDF file) as well as an example script (examples.m) that demonstrates many of these programs.

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