MATLAB: Datetime “PivotYear” doesn’t work

datetimepivotyear

I am trying to use datetime() to convert string dates to datenum, to use as an axis for plotting data. My input is (from debugger session):
K>> ttemp
ttemp = 
  10×1 string array
    "8/20/19 00:00"
    "8/20/19 00:01"
    "8/20/19 00:02"
    "8/20/19 00:03"
    "8/20/19 00:04"
    "8/20/19 00:05"
    "8/20/19 00:06"
    "8/20/19 00:07"
    "8/20/19 00:08"
    "8/20/19 00:09"
If I convert with datetime I get:
    K>> dt = datetime(ttemp)
dt = 
  10×1 datetime array
   20-Aug-0019 00:00:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:01:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:02:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:03:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:04:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:05:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:06:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:07:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:08:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:09:00
The years are supposed to be 2019, and I'd like to fix that, so I tried to use the 'PivotYear' name/value pair:
   K>> dt = datetime(ttemp,'PivotYear',2000)
dt = 
  10×1 datetime array
   20-Aug-0019 00:00:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:01:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:02:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:03:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:04:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:05:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:06:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:07:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:08:00
   20-Aug-0019 00:09:00
Why doesn't this work?
I'm using Matlab Version 9.6.0.1174912 (R2019a)

Best Answer

Hi Richard,
The pivot year has an effect only when the 'InputFormat' parameter is specified and it includes y or yy. Therefore, to solve your problem, you can use:
dt = datetime(ttemp,'InputFormat','M/dd/yy hh:mm','PivotYear',2000)
I'll contact our documentation team to improve our datetime documentation.
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