Setting plot XAxis limits using a segment of time in the data

Apologies if this sounds very elementary but I am plotting a line plot where the x axis is time. My variable (dtg) is in datetime format but goes for 3 consecutive days. I would like to plot only the range 10 Apr 2017 16:00:00 to 10 Apr 2017 18:20:00. All my other axis properties are fine, but xlim keeps giving me a error saying that Apr is not defined. I am using R2016b

ax=gca; ax.xlim([10 Apr 2017 16:00:00,10 Apr 2017 18:20:00]);

Thanks

Answer 1

[Jan]

t1 = datenum('10 Apr 2017 16:00:00');
t2 = datenum('10 Apr 2017 18:20:00');
ax.xlim([t1, t2]);

Does this work? If not, read the doc datenum to adjust the time format.

[Matt Martin]

Thanks Jan, You got me in the right direction and I got there quickly after your suggestion. Final looks like this:

t1 = string({'12 Apr 2017 16:00:00'});
t2 = string({'12 Apr 2017 18:20:00'});
t1 = datetime(t1, 'Format', 'dd MMM yyy HH:mm:ss', 'TimeZone', 'UTC');
t2 = datetime(t2, 'Format', 'dd MMM yyy HH:mm:ss', 'TimeZone', 'UTC');
xlim([t1,t2]);

Worked great! Again, thanks for the push in the right direction.