MATLAB: Empty output when indexing excel file

Financial ToolboxMATLABxlsread

I have an excel file that has the dates in column A. other columns are filled with info pertaining to that day. I want to be able to find a row number using todays date. here is the code:
addpath('C:\Users\Administrator\Dropbox (********)\******** Team Folder\Matlab\RFID chip reader');
[~,~, found] = xlsread('example_Update.xlsx');
p = strcmp(date, found(:,:));% Compare user input string with entries in the Excel sheet
rowNum = find(p==1)%Get Row number
this is supposed to open an excel file, look for todays date, and return the number of the row. however, this is my output:
rowNum =
  0×1 empty double column vector
I am not sure why this is happening. I appreciate any help

Best Answer

When you use the raw output of xlsread(), the values for dates are not in character format: they are in Excel numeric format, which is typically number of days since Jan 1, 1900 (but with a leap year bug for 1900 itself.)
datetime(cell2mat(found(2:end,1)),'convertfrom','excel')
I would suggest that you should consider switching from xlsread() to use readtable()
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