Converting Numeric Dates in Matlab does not work

I have a date column in my table with dates in numeric format, e.g. one date might look like this: 738570

When I try to convert it like this:

table1.Date = date(table1.Date)

I get this error:

Error using date Too many input arguments

[Stephen23]

The DATE function does not accept any input arguments:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/date.html

What do you expect to happen when you call a function with more input arguments than it accepts?

[Metin Akyol]

Makes sense. I ended up trying that after I got this error with Datetime:

Numeric Input data must be a matrix with three or six columns ....

Answer 1

[KSSV]

table1.Date = datestr(table1.Date)

Or

table1.Date = datetime(datevec(table1.Date))

[Metin Akyol]

datestr worked!! Thank you so much.

Answer 2

[Steven Lord]

Another way to do this is to convery the serial date number to a datetime using the 'ConvertFrom' name-value pair argument.

x = 738570;
dt = datetime(x, 'ConvertFrom', 'datenum')

dt = datetime
   18-Feb-2022

Let's check, since a datenum is the "Number of days since 0-Jan-0000 (proleptic ISO calendar)."

check = datetime(0, 1, 0) + caldays(x) % x calendar days after 0-Jan-0000

check = datetime
   18-Feb-2022