Importing HH:MM:SS from excel

So I have an excel file with a column of time in format HH:MM:SS. I imported this column into Matlab by choosing ''Number'' in the Import Data tool in Matlab and called this imported column''Time''. Then I used the datestr(Time,'HH:MM:SS') command to convert my imported column Time into the HH:MM:SS format but the problem is it converts it to a 300x8 char. The conversion is correct in that I get everything in HH:MM:SS format but it isn't in the regular format (with the symbol of 4 small squares in the workspace, instead I have a square with'abc' inside it). Not sure what char is exactly but I want it in 300x1 format so that I can plot it because at the moment I can't.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Answer 1

[Peter Perkins]

datestr is the (old) command to create strings that represent dates and times. So that's why you have a char array. If you import as numbers, you'll get time in units of days (that how Excel stores them), and so you might see something like

>> Time
Time =
      0.04309
      0.12784
      0.21258

You have not provided enough information to go on, but as Ahmet says, since R2014b datetime and duration are probably a better choice than using datestr. One thing you might do is this:

>> d = days(Time)
d = 
   0.04309 days
   0.12784 days
   0.21258 days
>> d.Format = 'hh:mm:ss'
d = 
   01:02:03
   03:04:05
   05:06:07
>> plot(d,1:3)

Answer 2

[Ahmet Cecen]

If you are using the import tool, use datetime, as in import as datetime initially. Then you will be able to access individual components like Data.Hour etc.

http://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/datetime.html

Answer 3

[Jean-Paul McCarthy]

Copy the times to an .txt file then import them