Read mm/dd/yy in Matlab

Hello!

I've been reading in an .xls file (although I'd like it to be .csv if that were possible for Matlab to read dates from) and am having trouble with it. They currently are set up in mm/dd/yy format and when read into matlab convert to a multiple digit code that I can't seem to translate back to original dates.

The first date listed is 6/1/90 and converts to the code 33025. Any ideas? Thanks!

[Nelson Mok]

Hope this help.

clear; t = readtable('ABC.xls'); datestr(x2mdate(t.Date),'mm/dd/yy')

[Walter Roberson]

readtable() did not exist at the time the original question was posted.

These days you would use

t = readtable('ABC.xls');
t.Date = datetime(t.Date, 'ConvertFrom', 'Excel', 'Format', 'MM/dd/yy');

Answer 1

[Evan]

That data you are reading is being brought in as a date number instead of a date string. The following function allows you to convert date numbers to date strings:

 help datestr

You can specify the style that you want datestr to return like so:

d = 33025;
ds = datestr(d,2)

In this case, the 2 argument causes datestr to return in "mm/dd/yyy" format. The documentation for datestr tells what styles are available.

[Theodore]

Worked PERFECTLY! Thanks so much!

[Evan]

Great! You're welcome!