Changing date format in R

Question

I have some very simple data in R that needs to have its date format changed:

 date midpoint
1   31/08/2011   0.8378
2   31/07/2011   0.8457
3   30/06/2011   0.8147
4   31/05/2011   0.7970
5   30/04/2011   0.7877
6   31/03/2011   0.7411
7   28/02/2011   0.7624
8   31/01/2011   0.7665
9   31/12/2010   0.7500
10  30/11/2010   0.7734
11  31/10/2010   0.7511
12  30/09/2010   0.7263
13  31/08/2010   0.7158
14  31/07/2010   0.7110
15  30/06/2010   0.6921
16  31/05/2010   0.7005
17  30/04/2010   0.7113
18  31/03/2010   0.7027
19  28/02/2010   0.6973
20  31/01/2010   0.7260
21  31/12/2009   0.7154
22  30/11/2009   0.7287
23  31/10/2009   0.7375

Rather than %d/%m/%Y, I would like it in the standard R format of %Y-%m-%d

How can I make this change? I have tried:

nzd$date <- format(as.Date(nzd$date), "%Y/%m/%d")

But that just cut off the year and added zeros to the day:

 [1] "0031/08/20" "0031/07/20" "0030/06/20" "0031/05/20" "0030/04/20"
 [6] "0031/03/20" "0028/02/20" "0031/01/20" "0031/12/20" "0030/11/20"
 [11] "0031/10/20" "0030/09/20" "0031/08/20" "0031/07/20" "0030/06/20"
 [16] "0031/05/20" "0030/04/20" "0031/03/20" "0028/02/20" "0031/01/20"
 [21] "0031/12/20" "0030/11/20" "0031/10/20" "0030/09/20" "0031/08/20"
 [26] "0031/07/20" "0030/06/20" "0031/05/20" "0030/04/20" "0031/03/20"
 [31] "0028/02/20" "0031/01/20" "0031/12/20" "0030/11/20" "0031/10/20"
 [36] "0030/09/20" "0031/08/20" "0031/07/20" "0030/06/20" "0031/05/20"

Thanks!

Answer 1

There are two steps here:

• Parse the data. Your example is not fully reproducible, is the data in a file, or the variable in a text or factor variable? Let us assume the latter, then if you data.frame is called X, you can do

 X$newdate <- strptime(as.character(X$date), "%d/%m/%Y")

Now the newdate column should be of type Date.

• Format the data. That is a matter of calling format() or strftime():

 format(X$newdate, "%Y-%m-%d")

A more complete example:

R> nzd <- data.frame(date=c("31/08/2011", "31/07/2011", "30/06/2011"), 
+                    mid=c(0.8378,0.8457,0.8147))
R> nzd
        date    mid
1 31/08/2011 0.8378
2 31/07/2011 0.8457
3 30/06/2011 0.8147
R> nzd$newdate <- strptime(as.character(nzd$date), "%d/%m/%Y")
R> nzd$txtdate <- format(nzd$newdate, "%Y-%m-%d")
R> nzd
        date    mid    newdate    txtdate
1 31/08/2011 0.8378 2011-08-31 2011-08-31
2 31/07/2011 0.8457 2011-07-31 2011-07-31
3 30/06/2011 0.8147 2011-06-30 2011-06-30
R> 

The difference between columns three and four is the type: newdate is of class Date whereas txtdate is character.