writetable() does not close file after writing

When using writetable Matlab opens an Excel file and I can see how columns are being filled.

However, the created file is not closed afterwards which it used to do but doesn't anymore.

Since the code may run in a loop for several days I may not always be around to close these files manually

To kill Excel entirely is not desireable as other Excel files, unrelated to the MatLab code, may be open.

I did try fopen and fclose but to no avail.

Any ideas? Is it possible that the issue lies in the Excel setting?

This is my code

% Export table output
disp(' > Output exportieren')
outputpath='C:\drive\folder\';
outputname='Table_output';
outputfile=strcat(outputpath,outputname,'_',datestr(now,'dd.mm.yyyy'),'.xlsb');
writetable(E,outputfile)

[Walter Roberson]

You could try

writetable(E, outputfile, 'useexcel', true)

but I am not clear that would help.

In the release you are using, the default for useexcel is false, so it should not be invoking Excel. But I cannot say at the moment whether it leaves the file open internally for efficiency reasons; I would not rule it out.

Answer 1

[Tobias Pettke]

Thanks for the help.

I found the issue was in an earlier writetable() instance, though.

There I changed the sheet name and the intended name was in double quotes.

Previously, the first Excel file was not closed after writing and later exports remained open as well.

Before

writetable(Table, filename, 'Sheet', "My Sheet Name")

Now

writetable(Table, filename, 'Sheet', 'My Sheet Name')

Answer 2

[Théophane Dimier]

Using an actxserver (see here ) instead of Matlab built-in function would give you complete control on which file is open or not, and you could even close excel directly from your matlab code, without having to kill the process.