How can I use function to give me a variable from an excel file?

I am trying to write a code that using user defined function I can get an answer from an excel file. In other words, I have an excel file that has years in the first column and values in the second, how can I use function for the user to enter a year from 1990 to 2018 and the answer to be whatever variable is assigned to that year from the excel file?

[Rik]

What have you tried so far?

I suspect it will be trivial if you load the data and use ismember.

Answer 1

[Srijith Kasaragod]

Hi Claudia,

Following lines of code shows one of the ways you could solve your problem:

tbl= readtable('excel.xlsx');
%variable year stores the user input
%Year and Answer are the column names of the table
[outa, outb]= ismember(year,tbl.Year);
sol= tbl.Answer(outb);

Please refer 'ismember' documentation to read more on how to verify if certain elements are members of a set array.