Importing data with date and time columns

I have a large data set in excel. In column A are dates(2015-01-01) and in column B are times(0:00).How do I import this into Matlab?

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

Import it using the xlsread function.

I assume you already knew that, and want to know how to combine the date and time strings to create a valid date number. You can take advantage of the fact that MATLAB uses square brackets [] to concatenate strings.

Something like this will work:

dt = '2015-01-01';
tm = '12:34';
dn = datenum([dt tm], 'yyyy-mm-ddHH:MM')
ds = datestr(dn)                                 % Check Conversion (Optional)

ds =
01-Jan-2015 12:34:00

[David du Preez]

I have tried that and it still doesn't work. When I use the xlsread function to import the data. Matlab ignores column A. Attached is a sample of the data and it continues like that for the rest of the year.

[Star Strider]

This works:

[d,s] = xlsread('David du Preez Book1.xlsx');
dn = datenum(s(2:end,1), 'mm/dd/yyyy') + d(:,1);
ds = datestr(dn)                                 % Check Conversion (Optional)