How can I write a cell array containing strings to excel?

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Hi, I have a cell array containing character arrays, numeric data and strings. The character arrays and numeric data are correctly written to excel, but the strings have disappeared.
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Vilvoorde Elabqc
Vilvoorde Elabqc on 9 Jan 2018
Edited: dpb on 9 Jan 2018
I have a table, called analysisTable, of which the field catNo contains strings. If I write it to an excel file like this
analysisTable=table2cell(analysisTable);
xlswrite(filename,analysisTable(:,1:end-4),'Analysis','A11');
the catNo field is gone. For now, I added this code before the table2cell command:
analysisTable.catNo=cellfun(@char,analysisTable.catNo,'UniformOutput',0)
This seems to solve my problem - although I still think it is weird that I cannot directly write strings to excel.
dpb
dpb on 9 Jan 2018
...I still think it is weird that I cannot directly write strings to excel.
See Answer; documented behavior.

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Accepted Answer

dpb
dpb on 9 Jan 2018
Edited: dpb on 9 Jan 2018
From the documentation,
...
A — Input matrix
matrix
Input matrix, specified as a two-dimensional numeric or character array, or, if each cell
contains a single element, a cell array.
If A is a cell array containing something other than a scalar numeric or text, then xlswrite
silently leaves the corresponding cell in the spreadsheet empty.
...
Just confirmed with R2016b that XLSWRITE has not been upgraded to handle the native string type; you'll have to cast each cell containing a string to character string to use it.
I'd presume it would be on the "to do" list, but submitting an enhancement request might bring it to the top of the pile sooner...
PS. TMW: The most frustrating part of this is the "silent" part; at least a warning would be helpful...

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