Problem with importing Date & time from Excel

Excel datas are these

2015-09-06  10:00:04 AM

2015-09-06  9:58:29 AM

date and time which in one line are in one cell. So I mean [2015-09-06 10:00] <- this is one cell in excel

I tried to import these date and time from excel to matlab by using xlsread fuction.

but I found that the form of data& time were changed like these

'2015-09-06 오전 10:00:04'

'2015-09-06 오전 9:58:29'

1. the date form is slitely changed [AM -> 오전]

I think matlab recognize the data form but it change in to Korean word.

How can I import excel date & time without changing it's form

2. and I tried to using datavec fucntion. but this error come out

 Caused by:
    [Error using datevec (line 247)
    Too many time fields in 2015-09-06 오전 10:00:04.]

3. after all I do these to calculate gap between time and time

How can I do these?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

It looks to me as if you are using R2014b or later and have configured the dates to be converted to datetime objects. If so then add the line

datetime.setDefaultFormats('default','yyyy-MM-dd h:mm:ss a')

and see if that helps. If I am correct then it is the display of the times that is being affected, not what is stored

If I am correct about it being datetime objects, then to find the difference between two times, just subtract them. You can assign a display format to the result:

timegap = time2 - time1;
timegap.Format = 'hh:mm:ss';

[SANGJUN PARK]

I just typed below fuction as you said

 datetime.setDefaultFormats('default','yyyy-MM-dd h:mm:ss a'

but there are also problem like this

Undefined variable "datetime" or class "datetime.setDefaultFormats".

I still jamed in this line. What should I do?

Answer 2

[Peter Perkins]

Sangjun, it sounds like you're using a version of MATLAB prior to R2014b, so Walter's suggestion won't work.

I'm assuming your (Windows) machine is set to Korean/Korea. Excel does some funny things when localizing dates/times, and although you see things like 2015-09-06 10:00:04 AM when you view the spreadsheet, Excel actually returns things like 2015-09-06 오전 10:00:04 to MATLAB for the contents of those cells. (Strangely, when I created a spreadsheet and edited a date/time cell, Excel temporarily displayed the Korean characters for AM/PM, but then switched back when I was done editing.)

So: I think the simplest thing for you to do is to change the format of the cells in Excel to not use the AM/PM token.