Timetables in MATLAB
Timetables are a type of tables in MATLAB that store a timestamp corresponding to each row. Similar to tables, timetables can store column-oriented data under a variable name (column name), where every variable has same number of rows. All the functions of a table work with timetables as well along with some timetable-specific functions that are used to align, combine and perform various calculations with other timetables. Let us see various ways of creating timetables.
Method 1:Using timetable()
A timetable can be created with the timetable function. This function takes a time vector and different vector variables.
Syntax:
timetable (<time vector>, var1, …, var n>)
Here, all var1…var n must have the same number if rows. See the following example for better understanding.
Example 1:
Matlab
% MATLAB code for timetable() % time vector tm_vector = datetime({ '2022-10-13 23:00:00' ; '2022-10-17 19:00:00' ; '2022-11-03 11:00:00' }); names = [ "Harry" ; "Mark" ; "Dean" ]; job = [ "IT" ; "Management" ; "HR" ]; % Creating timetable timetable(tm_vector,names,job) |
Output:
This will create a table of 3×2 and not 3×3 because the time stamp is not considered a column vector.
Method 2: Using table2timetable()
Converting a table into timetable by the table2timetable function. This function creates a timetable from a function that already has a time vector as one of its column vectors. See the following example to understand its working.
Example 2:
Matlab
% MATLAB code for table2timetable() tm_vector = datetime({ '2022-10-13 23:00:00' ; '2022-10-17 19:00:00' ; '2022-11-03 11:00:00' }); names = [ "Harry" ; "Mark" ; "Dean" ]; job = [ "IT" ; "Management" ; "HR" ]; % Creating table t=table(tm_vector,names,job); % Converting to timetable tt=table2timetable(t); |
Output:
Method 3: Using istimetable()
The istimetable() function returns a Boolean value. True if the given table is a timetable else false. See the following example
Example 3:
Matlab
% MATLAB code for istimetable() tm_vector = datetime({ '2022-10-13 23:00:00' ; '2022-10-17 19:00:00' ; '2022-11-03 11:00:00' }); names = [ "Harry" ; "Mark" ; "Dean" ]; job = [ "IT" ; "Management" ; "HR" ]; % Creating table t=timetable(tm_vector,names,job); istimetable(t) |
Output:
Accessing Elements:
You can access the elements of a timetable in the same manner as ordinary tables by any of the following methods:
- Smooth parenthesis
- Dot notation
- Curly braces notation
Refer to this GfG article for further explanation of accessing tables in MATLAB.
Conclusion:
This article discussed various methods of creating timetables in MATLAB and also briefly explained how to access the elements of a table in MATLAB.