hh:mm:ss string to duration type

I have strings that look like this: '24:06:26' and '7:20:26'. I want a duration type. What is the best way to get this?

All I have right now is

   str = ' 7:20:26' % or '24:06:26'
   d = duration(cellfun(@(x) str2double(x), regexp(str,'\d{1,2}','match')));

This seems inefficient and overkill because I have to use at least 3 function calls to get to a duration type.

Answer 1

[Guillaume]

You can get rid of the cellfun call, str2double works directly on cell arrays. The other two functions are necessary in any case. datetime just hides the string splitting and string to number conversion in its constructor.

You could use strsplit instead of regexp. I'm not sure which would be more efficient:

 d = duration(str2double(strsplit(str, ':')));

[Jason Nicholson]

This is definitely an improvement. I am going wait another day. If I don't get a better answer, then I will accept this one.