Datetime conversion input format

Hello everyone,

i got a problem while converting strings to datetime. My data come from a table in the format e.g. '013044' which should equal 'HHMMSS'. Therefore I suggested this code:

TT.Time=datetime(TT.TimeString,'InputFormat','HHMMSS','Format','HH:MM:SS');

However, the result I get is "shifted" and i get in the upper example values like "00:13:04". I attached my data and the results.

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

According to the datetime documentation, the correct format characters for times are:

• hours: 'HH' or 'hh' (for 24/12 hour clocks respectively)
• minutes: 'mm'
• seconds: 'ss'

Using the documented time format strings does not seem to give any problems:

>> TT.Time = datetime(TT.TimeString,'InputFormat','HHmmss','Format','HH:mm:ss')
TT = 
    TimeString      Time  
    __________    ________
    '002039'      00:20:39
    '011347'      01:13:47
    '014356'      01:43:56
    '002039'      00:20:39
    '004039'      00:40:39
    '011347'      01:13:47
    '002039'      00:20:39
    '002039'      00:20:39
    '002148'      00:21:48
    '002227'      00:22:27
    '002320'      00:23:20
    '002407'      00:24:07
    '002548'      00:25:48
    ... lots of rows here
    '011810'      01:18:10
    '012401'      01:24:01
    '012632'      01:26:32
    '012751'      01:27:51
    '013029'      01:30:29
    '013157'      01:31:57
    '013357'      01:33:57
    '013533'      01:35:33
    '013806'      01:38:06
    '014026'      01:40:26

You should also pay attention to other relevant parts of the documentation, e.g. "If infmt does not include a date specifier, then datetime assumes that the values in DateStrings occur during the current day". A duration object may be more suitable for your data.

[Robin Schäfer]

Thank you Stephen. I kind of expected a small mistake like this in the input format... I will check the convertion to a duration object, thank you!