Convert "Jan.2008" to date variable

Question

How would I convert the following character variables to dates?

strDates <- c("Jan.2008", "Feb.2008") str(strDates) chr [1:2] "Jan.2008" "Feb.2008" dates <- as.Date(strDates, "%b %Y") str(dates) Date[1:2], format: NA NA

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated

If you are dealing with months and not really dates you might be better off using the yearmon class located in the zoo package in which case you don't have to deal with days of the month in the first place: as.yearmon(strDates, "%b.%Y") — G. Grothendieck
– G. Grothendieck, Commented Feb 17, 2012 at 13:49

Dirk is no longer here · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-17 05:05:22Z

To form a valid 'date', you also need a day which your data was lacking. So we add one, and we simply use an arbitrary day (here: first of the month):

R> strDates <- c("Jan.2008", "Feb.2008") R> strptime(paste("01", strDates), "%d %b.%Y") [1] "2008-01-01" "2008-02-01" R>

Anyone know whether lubridate has any conversion function which assumes "day = 1" in the absence of a day field?

mdsumner · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-17 05:05:24Z

A Date requires a day element as well, so you can add that to the input string with paste:

full.dates <- paste("01", strDates, sep = ".")

Specify the template correctly, including separator tokens:

as.Date(full.dates, "%d.%b.%Y") [1] "2008-01-01" "2008-02-01"

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