MATLAB: Does the datestr return weird result

date conversion

I am experiencing some problem returning the correct results for my datestr function. When I execute the following script inside the command window:
datestr('18/10/2011 5:05:55 PM','dd/mm/yyyy HH:MM:SS PM')
the output came out as: 02/04/0024 5:05:55 PM
When I execute the following:
datestr('10/18/2011 5:05:55 PM','dd/mm/yyyy HH:MM:SS PM')
the output came out as: 18/10/2011 5:05:55 PM
Is is something to do with my Matlab setting? Basically I want to convert the given string (a time format written as string in dd/mm/yyyy HH:MM:SS pm) into Matlab datestr in dd/mm/yyyy HH:MM:SS pm format
Thanks in advance, Nu'man.

Best Answer

When doing string-to-string date conversion, MATLAB assumes that the first input is in "MATLAB standard dateform", which will be mm/dd/yyyy etc. If you want to use a different dateform, you must first convert that to MATLAB standard dateform (using datenum), then convert it back using datestr.
Your second example is in standard dateform, and is correctly converted; your first is not (because it is in dd/mm/yyyy).
This is stated in the "Tips" section of "doc datestr", and in the last paragraph of "help datestr".
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