Problem with 'datevec' function ... I think a bug!

Question

Mohammad Monfared 2012-7-25

First I should denote my Matlab version is R2011a. It's simple: running the simple code below

ans = datevec(input,'dd/mm/yyyy');

input is a cell array. there is no problem when its size is small but when it gets large (42600 in my case), this error is returned:

"??? Error using ==> dtstr2dtvecmx Failed on converting date string to date number.

Error in ==> datevec at 121 ans = datevec(input,'dd/mm/yyyy'); "

how can I deal with that? the function has no problem with a size around 1120 !!

Answer 1

Titus Edelhofer 2012-7-25

Hi,

this usually happens when somewhere down the array the strings are not valid anymore. A simple way to find out:

% assume inputArray to be your string array:
for i=1:length(inputArray)
  fprintf('Convert entry %d', i);
  t = datevec(inputArray{i});
end

Probably it will fail somewhere, but now you know which is the offending entry.

Titus

PS: BTW I would suggest another name than input, because input is a MATLAB function ...

Mohammad Monfared 2012-7-25

yessss U are right... my misunderstanding of input data structure :D

thanks a lot,