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 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 3x2 and not 3x3 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 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 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.