Matlab time stamps reading

Question

Any easy way to read all the columns in Matlab?

my format is

date time y1 y2 y3 y4 .........................
4/27/2010 00:3:09 34 45 45 56 ................

so on currently i am reading these with the code

[c,pathc]=uigetfile({'*.txt'},'Select the data','C:\Data');

file=[pathc c];
data= dlmread(file, ',', 1,3);

so needless to say i am skipping the time stamps.

Was wondering if there is aeasy way to read the time stamps and plot my other colums agianst the time in hours.

my files are 43200 X 30 and some are 86400 X 90

Related question : is the format same for .csv and .xls files , i mean except ofcourse xlsread

Answer 1

I already answered to your question on the same data here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2588021/skip-reading-headers-in-matlab/2588353#2588353

[c,pathc]=uigetfile({'*.txt'},'Select the data','C:\Data');
file=[pathc c];
A = importdata(file, ' ', 1);
dt = datenum(A.textdata(2:end,1),'mm/dd/yyyy');
tm = datenum(A.textdata(2:end,2),'HH:MM:SS');
tm = dt+tm-datenum('0:0','HH:MM'); %# combine date and time and correct for zero time.
data = A.data;

You can plot your data against tm and use DATETICK function to show date in any format.

plot(tm,data)
datetick('x','HH')
xlabel('Time, hours')

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EDIT

You can also use Jonas's solution for previous question to read the data. Then do same as above:

dt = datenum(dateAndTimeCell(:,1),'mm/dd/yyyy');
tm = datenum(dateAndTimeCell(:,2),'HH:MM:SS');
tm = dt+tm-datenum('0:0','HH:MM');

plot(tm,dataArray,'o-')
datetick('x','HH')
xlabel('Time, hours')

Answer 2

I believe sscanf will do the trick for you.