how to read a .xls file , sort data based on one of the columns and write the sorted data into separate .xls files

I have an excel data file (only floating point numbers no strings) with 19 columns and 11k rows or so. I want to sort this data based on a particular column, i.e, if the number in 4th column (of say 5th row) is "1" then, all the rows which have 4th column as 1 need to be separated out and written into a new .xls file . Similarly if number is "2" in 4th column then all rows which have 2 need to be sorted and written in a new xls file. How do i do that? P.S this new file being created must have all 19 columns in it. Thanks in advance

[Srinidhi B.R]

How to write it into a txt file instead of a xls file?

[Nkululeko Memela]

I find this Solution very helpful as well. I only wish that it had comments on each step because I am trying to use the idea in it to solve my specific problem. My problem if I could be lucky to receive any help as well is this: My Spreadsheet of 60 columns by 43000 rows has time and date variables. I would like to get the new spread sheet with data sorted by date and time whom are column 16 and 20 respectively. The date is repeated over many lines 2-8 as long as there is multiple times of a specific event in that day. I.e. I have (2) 8am times, (2) 11am and (4) 3pms time. I intend to sort my data in the new spreadsheet by unique times in a day. The whole spread sheet must be retained and it contains both strings and numerals.

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

data  = xlsread('YourInputFile.xls');

[~, ~, group4] = unique(data(:,4));
numgroup = max(group4);

for G = 1 : numgroup
   subset = data(group4==G, :);
   thisfile = sprintf('YourOutputFile_part_%d.xls', G);
   xlswrite(thisfile, subset);
end

[Srinidhi B.R]

Thank you Walter Roberson. Works perfectly.

[John Allen]

Sorry to be picky, but to my mind this is filtering and not sorting. Sorting would involve rearranging rows based on the value in one or more columns. :-)

If you want to sort then sortrows() is probably what you're want to check out.

[Walter Roberson]

@John Allen

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sort

transitive verb

1 a : to put in a certain place or rank according to kind, class, or nature

sort apples

sort mail