Thread Subject: Converting a Column of data into 3 columns

Hi all,
I'm working with a large dataset that has multiple columns
of data. The one column contains the year, month, and day in
the following format:

20080701

My question is how can I break up this column so that when I
read in the data from my text file that the month year and
data are separate variables?

Any help would be appreciated.
-N

"Nicole Sharp" <nicolesharp@yahoo.com> wrote in message
<g4elsh$1gs$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> Hi all,
> I'm working with a large dataset that has multiple columns
> of data. The one column contains the year, month, and day
in
> the following format:
>
> 20080701
>
> My question is how can I break up this column so that
when I
> read in the data from my text file that the month year and
> data are separate variables?
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
> -N
Hi,

Here is the way :
Read the column as string variable.convert in char and take
desired index.

>> a='20080712'

a =

20080712

>> b=char(a)

b =

20080712

>> b(1:4)

ans =

2008

>> b(5:6)

ans =

07

>> b(7:8)

ans =

12

with regards,
Nitin

"Nicole Sharp" <nicolesharp@yahoo.com> wrote in message
<g4elsh$1gs$1@fred.mathworks.com>...
> Hi all,
> I'm working with a large dataset that has multiple columns
> of data. The one column contains the year, month, and day in
> the following format:
>
> 20080701
>
> My question is how can I break up this column so that when I
> read in the data from my text file that the month year and
> data are separate variables?
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
> -N

Hai,

help datestr

Ashwini

In article <g4elsh$1gs$1@fred.mathworks.com>,
Nicole Sharp <nicolesharp@yahoo.com> wrote:
>I'm working with a large dataset that has multiple columns
>of data. The one column contains the year, month, and day in
>the following format:

>20080701

>My question is how can I break up this column so that when I
>read in the data from my text file that the month year and
>data are separate variables?

If the dataset is already in memory, and is in character format,
then the earlier answer about using array indices is the appropriate
answer.

If it is already in memory and is in numeric format, then
datestr as suggested by another poster might be convenient, but
since it is a large array you might find it much more efficient
to use mod() and rem() and similar, along the line of

day = mod(date,100);
month = mod(date,1000)-day;
year = floor(date / 1000);

If the dataset is being read in from a text file, then at the
time you are reading it in, instead of using a %d or %f format,
use %4d%2d%2d to create 3 numeric variables converted from
4 characters, 2 characters, and 2 characters respectively.
--
  "There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person
  could believe in them." -- George Orwell