date - Convert dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm:ss to seconds using MATLAB

Question

I work with csv and must subtract 2 cells with the following date format dd.MM.yyyy HH:mm:ss. I need to extract only the seconds.

Timestamp is a column and I attempted:

data1 = Timestamp(1) ;
data2 =  Timstamp(2) ; % returns error
class(data1); % returns cell 
data1 - data2 % returns error

How can I convert the cells into a number which I can subtract?

Answer 1

You can index into your cell to extract the date string. Then you can use datenum to convert it to "decimal days since 1st January 0000". Then it's a simple matter of subtracting your starting date (convert that using datenum as well) and changing from decimal days to seconds:

tmp = your_cell{1}; % e.g. 26.11.2020 00:00:00, is a string
tmp_date = datenum(tmp); % MATLAB datenum, decimal days.
tmp_date2 = datenum(your_cell{2});
no_start = tmp_date2-tmp_date;  % remove starting date
time_sec = no_start*(24*60*60);  % change decimal days to seconds

Or as a oneliner:

(datenum(your_cell{2})-datenum(your_cell{1}))*(24*60*60)