Re: octave datevec() v/s Excel/LibreOffice

[Mike Miller]

On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 11:47:11 -0400, jmb wrote:
> Thanks for your suggestion.  I installed io & financial
>     pkg install -forge -verbose io financial
>     pkg load io financial
>     serial = 41908.402198066;
>     m2xdate(serial);
>     warning: Negative date found, this will not work within MS excel
>     ans = -6.2505e+05
>
> I tried variants of m2xdate(serial, [1/0], [""/"ExcelBug"]); all
> resulting in the same error/warning.
> I am puzzled ... !  Any other suggestions?  Thank you.

I wasn't sure in which direction you want to convert. Did you see the
reference to x2mdate in the help? They seem like inverses of each
other to me.

m2xdate == Matlab-to-Excel basis conversion
x2mdate == Excel-to-Matlab basis conversion

So feed your Excel/LibreOffice number into x2mdate to get a valid
Octave datenum. Use m2xdate to convert an Octave datenum into
something a spreadsheet can use.

HTH,

-- 
mike