as.Date showing character string in unambiguous format even when strptime specified R

Question

I have this date column of form:

20160812
20160813

Basically YYYYMMDD.

I converted it to a date using strptime and as.Date

weather_dataset$DATE = as.Date(weather_dataset$DATE,"%Y%m%d")

But I get

Error in charToDate(x) : 
  character string is not in a standard unambiguous format

Huh? I've clearly specified the format to use, but its still throwing me this error for some reason. Would appreciate help! :)

Thank you!

or [R read dates in format yyyymmdd](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18116388/r-read-dates-in-format-yyyymmdd) — Ronak Shah, Nov 10 '16 at 13:21

J_F · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-10T13:07:54.457

4

Your data has to be a character. So use this workaround:

weather_dataset$DATE <- as.Date(as.character(weather_dataset$DATE),"%Y%m%d")

Another possibility is the library(lubridate):

weather_dataset$DATE <- lubridate::ymd(weather_dataset$DATE)

edited Nov 10 '16 at 13:07

answered Nov 10 '16 at 12:57

J_F

You're amazing, thanks! Will mark as correct once the min time limit allows me to – Wboy Nov 10 '16 at 12:58

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 10 '16 at 13:05

2

library(anytime)

anydate(20160812)

answered Nov 10 '16 at 13:05

Henk

2 Answers2