Column of dates to vector

Hey guys,

I have a table that contains dates that I would like to convert to a column of numbers (a vector), so I can do some further manipulation. When i use the following code: dateNum = datevec(date);

I get the following error:

Error using datevec (line 116)

The input to DATEVEC was not an array of character vectors or strings.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

[Steven Lord]

By "contains dates" are you referring to a datetime array or an array of serial date numbers?

What type of manipulation do you want to do? There may be a way to perform that manipulation directly on the datetime array without having to convert to a numeric representation.

What do the numbers you want to generate represent? Number of days since a certain date and time, number of hours, number of minutes, number of seconds, etc.?

[Kendal]

Good Day,

So the date/time is in the following format: 01/18/2022 12:00:00 AM

The date/time increases in 15 min intervals.

In adjacent column there are number of people present.

I would like to find the number of people for the entire of 2017, 2018, 2019

Please let me know if anything else is required.

Answer 1

[Narvik]

Hi Kendal,

As per my understanding, you are trying to convert your date strings into a numeric format and filter data for specific years.

The error "The input to DATEVEC was not an array of character vectors or strings" implies that the input "date" is not in expected format. Ensure that the dates are in string format.

dateStrings = {'09/04/2024 12:00:00 AM', ...}; % Example date strings

Then use "datevec" to convert strings into date vectors.

dateVectors = datevec(dateStrings, 'mm/dd/yyyy HH:MM:SS AM');

Refer to the following documentation for more information on "datevec" function:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/datevec.html

Hope this helps!