R formatting a date from a character mmm dd, yyyy to class date

Question

I am trying to format a date from a character of form mmm dd, yyyy

I tried :

date1 <- "Dec 05, 2016"
date2 <- format(date1, format="%d %B %Y")
 class(date2)
 date2

but this does not work. Thank you for any help.

I then tried as suggested:

date1 <- "Dec 05, 2016"
date2 <- format(as.Date(date1, "%b %d, %Y"), "%d %B %Y")
date2  <- as.Date(date2)

class(date2)
date2

but this still did not covert to the class date but was class: character

library(lubridate)
date1 <- "Dec 05, 2016"
date2 <- mdy(date1)
class(date2)
date2

First you need to convert to `Date` class i.e. `format(as.Date(date1, "%b %d, %Y"))` — akrun, Dec 14 '16 at 09:09

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 14 '16 at 09:11

3

We can convert to 'Date' class and then convert to the format of interest

format(as.Date(date1, "%b %d, %Y"), "%d %B %Y")
#[1] "05 December 2016"

answered Dec 14 '16 at 09:11

akrun

Thanks, that helps but unfortunately I still get it as character class.date1 <- "Dec 05, 2016" date2 <- format(as.Date(date1, "%b %d, %Y"), "%d %B %Y") date2 <- as.Date(date2) class(date2) date2 – adam.888 Dec 14 '16 at 09:52
I typed this above as it is not clear in the comment box – adam.888 Dec 14 '16 at 09:53
@adam.888 The `format` changes it to `character` class and `Date` class have only a single format i.e. `%Y-%m-%d` by design – akrun Dec 14 '16 at 09:55

1 Answers1