Time cell (or char) inside a double array

Hello, I have a 45x1 cell array, that I can convert to 45x8 char... the single cell is showing time, for example '09:45:46' ..

now, I would like to put this column as the first column of a double precision data array D.

I tried several things I was reading around, but I haven't found anything that could give me the right time as I see it here.

Some tips? Thanks

[Amit]

Example?

[Engineer]

I get the time using getabstime function from a timeseries object...in output is a (for exapmle) 45x1 cell containing each one the time in string 09:45:43. I'd like to have the time expressed in the first column in a double precision array as it is shown above. Now, I solved the problem doing datenum(getabstime(ow86), as usual, but I'd like to have time express as above, in order to read "easily" the data

Answer 1

[Till Rahlf]

which matlab release do you use?

dateCells = {'09:45:46','09:45:49'}

dateString = strjoin(dateCells, sprintf('\n'))

result = textscan(dateString, '%d:%d:%d') % for integer results

result = textscan(dateString, '%f:%f:%f') % for double results

[Engineer]

Thanks..I have earlier version of Matlab, but I found strjoin in File exchange http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/31862-strjoin.

However, I'd like to have the cell showing the time 09:45:43 (1,1), 09:45:44 (2,1), 09:45:45 (3,1) etc. , as first column of an array that is made by double precision data in the other 4 columns...

Reading around, maybe this is not possible(?!)...I switched for the usual datenum, even if I'm not very satisfied by that!

[Amit]

Okay the problem is the 09:45:43 is not double precision. So you cannot express it as double precision. The closest I can say you can do it 094543 which is a number.

Answer 2

[Till Rahlf]

What is exactly the result you expect?

Can you give an example for the cell array "dateCells "?

dateCells = {'09:45:43','09:45:44','09:45:45'}

expectedResult = ???

[Engineer]

I would like to show/print the time in the format HH:MM:SS instead of the datenum number in this double array. Probably, as said before, this is not possible because the time is not a number

[Till Rahlf]

Yes, it is right. The character ":" can not be represented by a double number.

Alternatively you can have numbers like Amit wrote:

result = [

094543 ...

094544 ...

094545 ...

]

Or in stead of one double time column, you could have 3, like

result = [ 09 45 43 ...

09 45 44 ...

09 45 45 ...

]

Is that solution applicable?