How do I specify a datetime format when reading a .csv/Excel file?

I would like to change the datetime format of dates read in from .csv files. How do I do that?

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

You can use 'setvaropts' to change the format of datetime variables. For example:

opts = detectImportOptions('example.csv');
opts = opts.setvaropts('myVariable','InputFormat','M/d/yyyy','DateTimeFormat','dd-MMM-yyyy');
t = readtable('example.csv',opts)

% 'example.csv' contains the column:
% myVariable
% 1/31/2020

'InputFormat' tells 'readtable' how to interpret the values in the file, while 'DateTimeFormat' tells MATLAB how to display the datetimes once they are in MATLAB.

For more information, refer to the "Import Date and Time Data" section on the following documentation page:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/matlab.io.text.delimitedtextimportoptions.setvaropts.html