Change the data field type in my shapefile

I would like to ask if there is any way to change the datafield type in a shapefile from Matlab R2019a. I manage to handle my data inside Matlab in a field type which is needed (like for example the datetime to be datetime or the float to be float) but after my export in shapefile every field type is converted to text!!!! Any ideas if there is a way to change somehow the dbf file before the export in order to respect my field types?

Answer 1

[KSSV]

If you change the data, you need to write into shapefile again using shapewrite to hold the changes.

[Dimitrios Poulos]

This following text is from Matlab's help. The field type is only numeric or charachter. How I could save a datetime value in my shp?

Feature attributes to include in the shapefile, specified as a scalar MATLAB® structure containing one field for each feature attribute. Assign to that field a scalar structure with the following four fields:

FieldName — The field name to be used in the file

FieldType — The field type to be used in the file: 'N' (numeric) or 'C' (character)

FieldLength — The field length in the file, in bytes

FieldDecimalCount — For numeric fields, the number of digits to the right of the decimal place

[KSSV]

So far I have not seen datetime saving into shapefile. What data you have?

[Dimitrios Poulos]

01/04/2022 (DATE) for example or 01/04/2022 11:38:00 (DATE-TIME)

[KSSV]

You can convert the datetime into a number using datenum.

You can also write the date into character:

d = '01/04/2022' ; 

[Dimitrios Poulos]

the final value will be 20220401 (instead of 01/04/2022) and the filed type: text instead of (Date)