atypical date string to datenum conversion

Hi,

Can anyone suggest how to convert the following date string to a datenum or datetime?

'16/10/2017 11:50'

Thanks!

Answer 1

[KSSV]

str = datetime('16/10/2017 11:50') ;
datenum(str)

[Steven Lord]

The one-input datetime call could issue a warning if the input format of the text representation of your date and time can't be unambiguously determined (like '05/10/2017 11:50' -- is that October 5th or May 10th?) In that case, avoid that ambiguity by specifying an 'InputFormat'.

This is October 16th.

>> dt = datetime('16/10/2017 11:50', ...
                 'InputFormat', 'dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm')
dt = 
  datetime
   16-Oct-2017 11:50:00

Here's how to distinguish between October 5th and May 10th

>> dt = datetime('05/10/2017 11:50', ...
                 'InputFormat', 'dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm')
dt = 
  datetime
   05-Oct-2017 11:50:00

>> dt = datetime('05/10/2017 11:50', ...
                 'InputFormat', 'MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm')
dt = 
  datetime
   10-May-2017 11:50:00