find a string from a cell array

I have a cell array of dates as

'Mon 22-08-2016'
'Mon 22-08-2016'
'Mon 22-08-2016'
'Tue 23-08-2016'
'Tue 23-08-2016'
'Tue 23-08-2016'
'Tue 23-08-2016'

if i enter a date as, '23-08-2016', i want to get the first row with that date....

Answer 1

[José-Luis]

a = {'Mon 22-08-2016'
'Mon 22-08-2016'
'Mon 22-08-2016'
'Tue 23-08-2016'
'Tue 23-08-2016'
'Tue 23-08-2016'
'Tue 23-08-2016'}

idx = find(cellfun(@(x) ~isempty(x),strfind(a,'23-08-2016')),1,'first')

Answer 2

[Guillaume]

Use a more useful date format, such as datetime

%your inputs:
dates = {'Mon 22-08-2016'
         'Mon 22-08-2016'
         'Mon 22-08-2016'
         'Tue 23-08-2016'
         'Tue 23-08-2016'
         'Tue 23-08-2016'
         'Tue 23-08-2016'};
searchdate = '23-08-2016';

%convert to useful format:
ddates = datetime(dates, 'InputFormat', 'eee dd-MM-yyyy');  
dsearchdate = datetime(searchdate, 'InputFormat', dd-MM-yyyy');
find(ddates == dsearchdate, 1)  %find first row where dates match

%to display the datetimes with other formats (display won't affect the search 
%even if each datetime uses a different format:
ddates.Format = 'eee dd-MM-yyyy'
dsearchdate.Format = 'dd-MM-yyyy'

[Elysi Cochin]

thank you all