如何在Matlab中找到最接近给定时间值的时间值

Question

Say that I have a time value given, for example: 2012-03-28_15:10:00 and then I have a sting that stores multiple time values:

2012-03-28_14:00:00
2012-03-28_14:10:00
2012-03-28_14:20:00
2012-03-28_14:30:00
2012-03-28_14:40:00
2012-03-28_14:50:00
2012-03-28_15:00:00
2012-03-28_15:05:00
2012-03-28_15:20:00
2012-03-28_15:30:00

I want to find the time value in the string that is the closest to the original time value. Does anyone know how this can be done in matlab?

Answer 1

Code

data1 = '2012-03-28_15:10:00'
data2 = [
'2012-03-28_14:00:00'
'2012-03-28_14:10:00'
'2012-03-28_14:20:00'
'2012-03-28_14:30:00'
'2012-03-28_14:40:00'
'2012-03-28_14:50:00'
'2012-03-28_15:00:00'
'2012-03-28_15:05:00'
'2012-03-28_15:20:00']

[~,ind1] = min(abs(datenum(data2)-datenum(data1)));
closest_time = data2(ind1,:)

Output

closest_time =

2012-03-28_15:05:00

Extended Part: If you have many dates, as a char matrix too and to be compared to the list, then using a bsxfun approach might be a better solution, as it avoids loops. This is shown below -

Code

data1 = [
'2012-03-28_14:02:00'
'2012-03-28_14:11:00'
'2012-03-28_14:23:00'
'2012-03-28_14:32:00']

data2 = [
'2012-03-28_14:00:00'
'2012-03-28_14:10:00'
'2012-03-28_14:20:00'
'2012-03-28_14:30:00'
'2012-03-28_14:40:00'
'2012-03-28_14:50:00'
'2012-03-28_15:00:00'
'2012-03-28_15:05:00'
'2012-03-28_15:08:00']

[~,ind1] = min(abs(bsxfun(@minus,datenum(data2),datenum(data1)')));
closest_time = data2(ind1,:)

Output

closest_time =

2012-03-28_14:00:00
2012-03-28_14:10:00
2012-03-28_14:20:00
2012-03-28_14:30:00