MATLAB: Cell array to string to datetime conversion, parse error.

Question

Hello,

I have a cell array of many data types. The first column stores dates and times of the format: '2016/04/16 10:06:05 PM'.

I have pulled the first column out,

here = T(:,1);

so I'm trying to obtain datetimes from them using,

f = 'yyyy/MM/dd h:mm:ss a';
d1 = datetime(here(1),'InputFormat',f,'Format',f);

but I get the following error:

Error using datetime (line 616)
Unable to parse ''2016/04/16 10:06:05 PM'' as a date/time using the format 'yyyy/MM/dd h:mm:ss a'

So it looks like I have extra quotes maybe? I'm not really sure. I tried changing the format f

'"yyyy/MM/dd h:mm:ss a"',

tried converting the cell to an array of strings,

here = string(here);

and an array of chars,

cell2mat(here);

but nothing has worked at all. I'm getting very frustrated.

I even tried converting it to a string and tried using the function erase() to get rid if potential extra quotes but nothing I've tried works. I need these to be datetimes to work with them with my other functions.

Any help would be wonderful, thank you.

*EDIT* I just read that datetime can handle cell arrays but that's not working either and I'm having the following returned where here is still a cell array:

Error using datetime (line 616)
Unable to parse date/time text using the format 'yyyy/MM/dd h:mm:ss a'.

I'm completely lost.

Answer 1

datetime( regexprep(here, '''', ''), 'InputFormat', f, 'Format', f)