Convert numerous date and time values into serial number

Question

I need to convert date and time into a numerical value. for example:

>> num = datenum('2011-05-07 11:52:23')

num = 
   7.3463e+05

How would I write a script to do this for numerous values without inputting the date and time manually?

Answer 1

You can store your date strings first in a cell array (or a matrix, provided they are of fixed format), and feed it straight to datenum . For example:

C = {'2011-05-07 11:52:23'
     '2011-03-01 20:30:01'};
vals = datenum(C)