Convert character string to datetime variable

Hello all,

I have a character string that represents the day and time. It takes the following format:

T = '352:20:38:58.092000'

Where 355 represents the day number in the year (17-Dec-2020). Assuming that I know the year, what is the shortest way to convert this character string into a datetime variable to be

T =  17-Dec-2020 20:38:58.092000

I can do it but with multiple steps that include splitting the string to get the number of the day (352) and convert it to 'dd-mm-yyyy' format using:

Year = 2020; Day = 352;
datetime(Year,1,0) + caldays(Day);

But I am looking for the fastest way to do this, if anyone can help.

Thanks in advance!

[Ahmad Gad]

Thanks a lot Cris for the answer. I was looking for something similar.

Answer 1

[Cris LaPierre]

You are assuming doing this in a single step is faster. That is not always true. Just remember there may be a lot happening under the hood to compensate for compact code. Also, compact code can make it harder for others to understand your code.

Recognizing that your day and time is not a datetime but a duration (elapsed time from the beginning of the year), I would probably take the following approach.

T = '352:20:38:58.092000';
% convert to a duration
dur = duration(T,"InputFormat","dd:hh:mm:ss.SSSSSS")

dur = duration
   8468:38:58

% Add the duration to Jan 0, 2020 to get datetime
d = datetime(2020,01,0)+dur

d = datetime
   17-Dec-2020 20:38:58

d.Format = "dd-MMM-yyyy HH:mm:ss.SSSSSS"

d = datetime
   17-Dec-2020 20:38:58.092000