[d,mo,yr]=textread('yourfile','%2d.%2d.%4d');
if were only that column. For more columns, use the proper format string for the line including whichever columns care to skip entirely and read into a cell array via textscan then convert per above format string using the particular cell column holding the dates. Have to convert the cellstr array to character array so use
damoyr=celltomat(textscan(char(c(N),'%2d.%2d.%4d'));
where N is the column of the above cell array returned containing the date string.
Or, if you have recent release, there's a date formatting string '%d' that will parse dates/times directly.
