MATLAB: A problem with the date structure

Question

Dear all,

I load some data from an excel file and I obtain D={

 'dates'
 [40521]
    [40461]
    [40370]
    [40310]
    [40575]
    '30/01/11'
    '27/02/11'
    '27/03/11'
    '24/04/11'
    '22/05/11'
    '19/06/11'
    '17/07/11'
    '14/08/11'
    [40856]
    [40796]
    [40705]
};

I know that is has to do with the setting of excel and that I should format the dates.

Can I correct this problem within Matlab so as to have only this format '17/07/11' and not date numbers?

thanks

Answer 1

idx_to_change = cellfun(@isnumeric, D);
dateshift = 695422;   %1904 date system; 693960 for 1900 date system
D(idx_to_change) = cellstr( datestr( [D{idx_to_change}] + dateshift ) );