discrepancy in date conversion

Hi,

The DT=datenum(2017,5,13,0,0,0); in matlab gives: 736828

when i convert 736828 in excel to dattime it gives 5/13/3917 12:00:00 AM.

What is the reason behind such change in the year between matlab and excel conversion?

Thanks!

Answer 1

[Urmila]

Hi,

Looks like the date format in the excel sheet is different. You can Ctrl+1 to format the cells and select the format as shown in the screenshot.

However, a better solution would be to use datetime function, DT=datetime(2017,5,13,0,0,0); This will make the variable DT to be a datetime variable and you need not have to change the format manually.

Answer 2

[Steven Lord]

See the description of the dateType input that you can pass into datetime on the documentation page for datetime, specifically the description of the 'datenum' and 'excel' values. I second Urmila's suggestion to use datetime instead of serial date numbers returned by datenum. [The documentation page for datenum makes the same recommendation.]

[Peter Perkins]

Yes, to add to what Steve has said:

>> datetime(736828,'ConvertFrom','datenum')
ans = 
  datetime
   13-May-2017
>> datetime(736828,'ConvertFrom','excel')
ans = 
  datetime
   13-May-3917   

Excel uses a completely different representation that the old MATLAB datenum format. And you should stay away from using datenum at all, and use the new and better datetime instead.

Answer 3

[MatLab Code N]

Thank you both for your explanations. Much aprreciated!