User`s manual

7 ActiveX and DDE Support
7-32
.XLC and includes the full path if necessary. A Microsoft Excel item is a cell
reference, which can be an individual cell or a range of cells.
Microsoft Word for Windows topics are System and document names that are
stored in files whose names end in
.DOC or .DOT. A Word for Windows item is
any bookmark in the document specified by the topic.
The following example is an M-file that establishes a DDE conversation with
Microsoft Excel, and then passes a 20-by-20 matrix of data to Excel.
% Initialize conversation with Excel.
chan = ddeinit('excel', 'Sheet1');
% Create a surface of peaks plot.
h = surf(peaks(20));
% Get the z data of the surface
z = get(h, 'zdata');
% Set range of cells in Excel for poking.
range = 'r1c1:r20c20';
% Poke the z data to the Excel spread sheet.
rc = ddepoke(chan, range, z);
DDE Advisory Links
You can use DDE to notify a client application when data at a server has
changed. For example, if you use MATLAB to analyze data entered in an Excel
spreadsheet, you can establish a link that causes Excel to notify MATLAB
when this data changes. You can also establish a link that automatically
updates a matrix with the new or modified spreadsheet data.
MATLAB supports two kinds of advisory links, distinguished by the way in
which the server application advises MATLAB when the data that is the
subject of the item changes at the server:
•A hot link causes the server to supply the data to MATLAB when the data
defined by the item changes.
•A warm link causes the server to notify MATLAB when the data changes but
supplies the data only when MATLAB requests it.