Trouble with code to check for Excel file existence

Hello!

xlsread() goes through a bunch of machinations before it tells you that the file doesn't exist if you mistyped the file name. I wrote the simple script to check if the file exists:

while exist('file_name','file') ~= 2
    filename_root = input('File name (no xlsx)','s');
    file_name = [filename_root,'.xlsx'];
end
disp('Success');

This way I could simply loop to correct an obvious misspelling. This doesn't work. I tried this:

filename_root = input('File name (no xlsx)','s');
file_name = strcat(filename_root,'.xlsx');

if exist('file_name','file') == 0
    disp('Not found');
else
    disp('Success');    
end

and never got to "Success". Any thoughts?

Thanks!

Doug A

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

if exist(file_name,'file') == 0

Answer 2

[Douglas Anderson]

One quick comment: I know that it isn't a path problem