How to work with categorical or "cell" variables within a table?

Hello! I am new in Matlab so this might be a basic question but I hope that you can help me anyway! :)

I loaded some gaming data as a table in matlab which contains columns such as "Date", "Time", and "Status" such as "Game is loading..." or "life point collected". When I asked for the class of data, each variable was labelled as being a "cell" type.

RandomNo Date Time Status

__________ ______________ ________________ _______________________________________________________________

1.345e+12 {'10/04/2021'} {'17:57:55:890'} {'Saving successful.'}

1.674e+12 {'10/04/2021'} {'17:57:55:890'} {'New Game File created successfully.'}

...

So my question is: how can I convert the variables in a way that I can work with them? For example, to calculate the min or max Date/Time, I would first convert both cell variables into datetime but I only got error messages.

>> time_stamps = datetime(gamingdata{:,3}, 'InputFormat', 'HH:mm:ss.SSS');

Error using datetime

Unable to convert the text to datetime using the format 'HH:mm:ss.SSS'.

OR

>> time_stamps = datetime(gamingdata{:,Time}, 'InputFormat', 'HH:mm:ss.SSS');

'Time' requires Embedded Coder.

Thanks in advance!

[KSSV]

It would be better to show us your data and tell us your expectations.

[greenyellow22]

I did above

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

Converting the ‘Date’ and ‘Time’ variables to datetime arrays is straightforward, however it is not obvious.

Try this —

T1 = table(rand(2,1)*1E12, [{'10/04/2021'};  {'10/04/2021'}], [{'17:57:55:890'}; {'17:57:55:890'}],[{'Saving'};{'Saving Successful'}], 'VariableNames',{'RandomNr','Date','Time','Status'})

T1 = 2×4 table
     RandomNr          Date               Time                 Status        
    __________    ______________    ________________    _____________________

    8.6947e+11    {'10/04/2021'}    {'17:57:55:890'}    {'Saving'           }
    5.6831e+11    {'10/04/2021'}    {'17:57:55:890'}    {'Saving Successful'}

T1.DateTime = datetime(T1.Date,'InputFormat','dd/MM/yyyy') + timeofday(datetime(T1.Time,'InputFormat','HH:mm:ss:SSS'))

T1 = 2×5 table
     RandomNr          Date               Time                 Status                  DateTime      
    __________    ______________    ________________    _____________________    ____________________

    8.6947e+11    {'10/04/2021'}    {'17:57:55:890'}    {'Saving'           }    10-Apr-2021 17:57:55
    5.6831e+11    {'10/04/2021'}    {'17:57:55:890'}    {'Saving Successful'}    10-Apr-2021 17:57:55

T1 = removevars(T1,{'Date','Time'})

T1 = 2×3 table
     RandomNr            Status                  DateTime      
    __________    _____________________    ____________________

    8.6947e+11    {'Saving'           }    10-Apr-2021 17:57:55
    5.6831e+11    {'Saving Successful'}    10-Apr-2021 17:57:55

T1 = T1(:,[1 3 2])

T1 = 2×3 table
     RandomNr           DateTime                 Status        
    __________    ____________________    _____________________

    8.6947e+11    10-Apr-2021 17:57:55    {'Saving'           }
    5.6831e+11    10-Apr-2021 17:57:55    {'Saving Successful'}

.