How to transform the date format as "20050425"
On 25 Apr 2005 at 15:18, Yong Wang wrote:
Dear R user, if the dates are in format as "20050425" i.e., Apr. 25 2004" can you suggest an easy way to transfom it to standard form as "2005-04-25" or "2004Apr25" or "2005/04/25" or any other format which is R recognizable? if there is no easy way to do that, can you let me know what is the function in R performing similiar function as the "string" function in C or some other more basic language, so I can loop through all dates to make the desired change. thank you regards
If the format really is always like that you can use this: require(date) # gives you date handling x <- as.character(20050425) date <- mdy.date(as.numeric(substr(x,5,6)),as.numeric(substr(x,7,8)),\ as.numeric(substr(x,1,4))) (You'll have to remove the line wrapping there, the "\" is where I put a break in!) Good luck! Chris
Chris Evans <chris at psyctc.org> Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy, Rampton Hospital; Research Programmes Director, Nottinghamshire NHS Trust, Hon. SL Institute of Psychiatry *** My views are my own and not representative of those institutions ***