Extract the date from a standard filename

Hi Guys,

I have thousands of .MAT files which hold data with the file name convention

Vehicle_Registration_Type_Date.MAT

the Type is exactly the same for every file.

Currently I am using

    DateLocation=regexp(SelectedMat,'\d');
    DateVals=regexp(SelectedMat,'\d','match');
    DateVal = cell2mat(DateVals);
    DateNum = datenum(DateVal,'yymmdd');
    DateStr = datestr(DateNum, 'dd-mm-yy');

I am finding that the 2 digits in the Registration are appearing in the datestring making it wrong.

e.g Vehicle_XX62XXX_Type_130101 returns 62130101

The date is in US format yymmdd although I am in the UK

is there a way to filter the string to only be searched after type?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Many Thanks

James

Answer 1

[Jan]

Str     = 'Vehicle_XX62XXX_Type_130101';
index   = strfind(Str, '_');
S       = Str(index(end):end);
StrDate = [S(5:6), '-', S(3:4), '-', S(1:2)];

This is a really stupid approach, without 2 REGEXPs, CELL2MAT, DATENUM and DATESTR, which are all such powerful, that they need a lot of time.

[James hall]

Hi Jan,

This worked well after one correction

 Str     = 'Vehicle_XX62XXX_Type_130101';
  index   = strfind(Str, '_');
  S       = Str(index(end):end);
% StrDate = [S(5:6), '-', S(3:4), '-', S(1:2)];
  StrDate = [S(6:7), '-', S(4:5), '-', S(2:3)];

I found that it was including a underscore into StrDate without.

I'm assuming you meant that the code was stupid, can fully accept that I may have been stupid using so many highpower functions to gain the same answer :D. Either way many thanks for the Help

James