csv2struct(filename​)

reads Excel's files stored in .csv or .xls file formats and stores results as a struct

CSV2STRUCT reads Excel's files stored in .xls or .csv file formats and stores results as a struct.
DESCRIPTION
The Excel file is assumed to have a single header row. The output struct will have a field for each column and the field name will be based on the column name read from the header.
Unlike csvread, csv2struct is able to read files with both text and number fields and store data as fields of a struct. Likely works on Windows machines only.

See also:
MATLAB's csvread and xlsread functions
xml_read from my xml_io_tools which creates struct out of xml files