Help Optimize slow Datestr() function performance

I have imported a large text file with textual dates in the format m/d/yyyy. The end result that I need is a numeric date (for export to another system) in the format yyyymmdd. Since my text file is rather large (850,000 rows) my current method for conversion is really slow. It's taking about 50 seconds for the single line of code to run and is about 75% of my code's total run time. Since I have to run this code iteratively at times I'm interested in any suggestions to optimize how I'm using datestr, or an alternative.

Here's my code

tic
MyDates = str2num(datestr(MyData{1,2},'yyyymmdd'));
toc

yields - Elapsed time is 49.348078 seconds.

[José-Luis]

Please show how MyData{1,2} looks like.

[Brian]

    {'12/31/1989';'1/31/1990';'2/28/1990';'3/31/1990'};

850,000 rows of a cell containing date text. It would be a little easier if the month came in the format 'mm', but it does not. For months 1-9, there is just a single number.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

t = datevec(MyData{1,2});
MyDates = t(:,1) * 10000 + t(:,2) * 100 + t(:,3);

[Brian]

Thanks a bunch Walter, I knew there had to be a much easier and quicker way.

[Walter Roberson]

Out of interest, how long does it take now? Comparing to the 50 seconds.

[Brian]

Ran it three times and now takes between 5.5 and 6.5 seconds. Again, thanks a lot. That's a dramatic improvement.