while loop for a date input

I've a section of code to display one error if an inputted date is less than 22nd jan 2020 and another if its greater than 22nd april 2020.

It gives the first error no matter what date is inputted.

What needs correcting?

Thanks

date1 = 0 ;
Variable3 = input('Please enter a date after 22/01/2020 in the format dd/mm/yyyy \n');
DateString = { 'Variable3' } ;
FormatIn = 'dd/mm/yyyy' ;
datenum('Variable3', 'FormatIn') = date1 ; 

  
     
            if (date1 < 737812) % 737812 = datenum for 22/01/2020
                fprintf('Error 505: No recorded cases.\n Please enter a date after 22/01/2020');            
                   
            end
            
           
            if (date1 > 737903) % 737903 = datenum for 24/04/2020
                fprint('Error 231: No data currently available. \n Please enter a date before 25/04/2020 or check back after next update.');
                    
            end

   

Answer 1

[Isiah Pham]

When you assign variables, it's

variable = action;

When you assigned date1 to a 0, it's stays that way. What you want is date1 = datenum('Variable3', 'FormatIn');

[Lauren Hough]

Changed it to this, still giving me the first error no matter what is inputted

[Isiah Pham]

It might be because datenum is taking in literaly 'Variable3', the character vector. Change it to just datenum(DateString, FormatIn)

You also don't need a cell array for a single input, so you can get rid of the curly brackets