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discrepancy in date conversion
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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!
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Accepted Answer
Urmila
on 20 Nov 2020
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.
![](https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/uploaded_files/421033/image.jpeg)
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More Answers (2)
Steven Lord
on 20 Nov 2020
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.]
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Peter Perkins
on 20 Nov 2020
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.
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