MATLAB: Datenum with multiple formats

Question

Hi All,

I am trying to convert a string array into a date serial.

When i use xlsread to import an excel document, it imports the following string array.

'01/01/2015 9:00:00 PM'
'01/01/2015 10:00:00 PM'
'01/01/2015 11:00:00 PM'
'02/01/2015'
'02/01/2015 1:00:00 AM'
'02/01/2015 2:00:00 AM'
'02/01/2015 3:00:00 AM'

in general it is in the format:

'mm/dd/yyyy HH:MM:SS PM'

but the imported 12am timestamps are formatted without the time. So when I provided datenum with that format:

datenum(txt,'mm/dd/yyyy HH:MM:SS PM')

it has an error when it it gets to the items without the time string.

Then if I dont provide the format, it assumes it is in the form 'dd/mm …'

How can I efficently convert this array into date serials?

Thanks!

Answer 1

"Use readtable() to read the file."

Thanks madhan ravi, using read table instead did the trick