How to get read excel data into an array with python
Question: In the lab that I work in, we process a lot of data produced by a 96 well
plate reader. I'm trying to speed up the process by writing a script that will
calculate the percent cytotoxicity from light absorbance (the easy part :])
and output a bar graph using matplotlib.

The problem is that the plate reader outputs data into a .xls file. I
understand that some modules like pandas have a read_excel function, can you
explain how I should go about reading the excel file and putting it into a 2D
array (matrix)?

Thanks

Data sample of a 24 well plate (for simplicity):

    
    
    0.0868  0.0910  0.0912  0.0929  0.1082  0.1350
    0.0466  0.0499  0.0367  0.0445  0.0480  0.0615
    0.6998  0.8476  0.9605  0.0429  1.1092  0.0644
    0.0970  0.0931  0.1090  0.1002  0.1265  0.1455
    


Answer: I'm not exactly sure what you mean when you say array, but if you mean into a
matrix, might you be looking for:

    
    
    import pandas as pd
    df = pd.read_excel([path here])
    df.as_matrix()
    

This returns a numpy.ndarray type.

