Potential bug related to readtable's "VariableNamingRule"

According to Create table from file - MATLAB readtable (mathworks.com), 'VariableNamingRule' and 'preserve' is a valid name-value pair. However, this pair does NOT seem to be recognized when there is an existing name-value pair in the argument. That is,

inertialMagFieldDataTable = readtable('InertialMagFieldData_simplified.csv', 'VariableNamingRule', 'preserve')

does work, but

inertialMagFieldDataTable = readtable('InertialMagFieldData_simplified.csv', 'VariableNamingRule', 'preserve', 'Format', '%{dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss.SSS}D%f%f%f')

does NOT work (and gives the error "Invalid parameter name: VariableNamingRule").

Question 1: is that a bug on MATLAB's part?

So, as a result, I've had to do something like

opts = detectImportOptions('InertialMagFieldData_simplified.csv');
opts.VariableNamingRule = 'preserve';
opts = setvartype(opts, 'Time_UTCG_', 'datetime');
opts = setvaropts(opts, 'Time_UTCG_', 'InputFormat', 'dd MMM yyyy HH:mm:ss.SSS', 'DatetimeFormat', 'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss');
inertialMagFieldDataTable = readtable('InertialMagFieldData.csv', opts);

I feel like there should be a way to do what the five lines of code above do with only one or two lines of code, especially if the potential bug related to 'VariableNamingRule' is fixed.

Question 2: what's the most concise way to do it (including converting the output datetime format to 'yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss')?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

It is a bug or limitation up through R2021a, that when you use 'Format' the only acceptable other option is 'FileType'.