read and search an excel file with Arabic or Persian column

I have an excel file with Arabic or Persian column, I want to search in this Persian column and find the repeated word in this column. But because it is Persian word, the Matlab read them as "NAN". is there anyone that know, how could I solve this problem? thanks in advance

[Guillaume]

As I suspect most of us answering questions don't have a spreadsheet with arabic or persian data, can you provide an example so we can do some testing?

[madhan ravi]

This is an interesting question waiting for someone to answer

[Nooshin Mahmoodi]

this file has three sheets with the Persian column and the first row is the name of variables in each sheet, for example, I need to search in the 4th column, that in the first sheet, just have seven different values, then I want to get average for the similar one.

Answer 1

[Guillaume]

With R2018b, It looks like your spreadsheet can be read correctly using either xlsread or readtable.

[~, ~, raw] = xlsread('test.xls')

or

t = readtable('test.xls')

Some rows of the table don't display properly in the command window but are displayed properly in the variable browser. In addition, since matlab does not accept arabic characters for variable names, all the column names are mangled. But otherwise, everything appears to work properly

>> find(strcmp(t.(15), 'بتونی و فلزی'))  %find 'بتونی و فلزی' in column 15
ans =
    15
    18
>> mean(t.(14))  %mean of column 14
ans =
        5.375

[Nooshin Mahmoodi]

thanks a lot, I used the "xlsread", but with the "readtable" it workes.