How to import ORIGINAL time data from .xlsx files to MATLAB

Question

I've got a .xlsx file with parts like this:

I want to import that into MATLAB like this:

[data,txt,raw]=xlsread('filename','D1:D6')

But it becomes:

{'2019/5/26 8:17:41'}
{'2019/5/26 8:17:41'}
{'2019/5/26 8:17:41'}
{'2019/5/26 8:17:41'}
{'2019/5/26 8:17:41'}
{'2019/5/26 8:17:41'}

which rounds my original data to seconds, BUT I need to keep the milliseconds.

When I open the data file in Excel, I realized where the wrong data comes from.

And now my question: Is there a way to import the original data like 2019-05-26 08:17:40.501 into MATLAB? Both datestr or datenum can be accepted, only if it contains the same thing with original data.

I can't find out any clue in doc xlsread or doc importdata to deal with this issue. Also I've seen this question on StackOverflow , which has similar data with mine but with totally different result, and I'd assume to be a different issue.

Answer 1

Thanks to @Phil Goddard, this issue is fixed with readtable , namely:

raw=readtable('filename');

the result is a table

As you see, everything goes well. The time data is actually a datetime vector, which can be checked by raw{:,4} , and can be converted to datenum or datestr or anything you like.

Generally, use readtable instead of xlsread .