xls2mat

% DATA = xls2mat(In_File_Name,Out_File_Name)
%
% Take an excel spreadsheet and convert it to a matlab struct,
% with a field for each column in the spreadsheet.
%
% This function xls2mat, assumes a special structure in the spreadsheet
% file, described in detail below.
%
%
%
% INPUTS:
% In_File_Name must be a .xls extension
% Out_File_Name must be a .mat extension
%
%
% OUTPUTS:
% DATA = a struct with one field for each column in the spreadsheet, and
% the name of the field will be the name of the column. If the data in
% the given column is strings, then the corresponding field will be a
% cell array. If it is numeric, then the field will be a column vector.
%
% If the second argument is present, then DATA will be written to a .mat
% file.
%
%
%
% NOTES:
%
%
% This function assumes a special structure in the spreadsheet:
%
% 1) The first row is a header row of strings. These strings must be valid
% matlab variable names, and they must be unique (or they will be
% overwritten).
%
% 2) Each column has a consistent data type (numerical or string)
%
% 3) There must be no blank columns, or blanks in the first row of data
%
%
%
% This function is built around xlsread(), and thus will work on any files
% that are correctly recognized by xlsread(). Type
% >> help xlsread
% for additional details regarding this.
%