R help - Aug 2003 - SQL Dates

How can I have SQL queries (ODBB/Windows) return dates (cf text) for date
columns?

I can successfully query and ODBC database with R.  I can subsequently convert
the text representations of dates in columns using as.POSIXxx functions but I
figured there must be a way to achieve this at the time of the query.

Any tips?

paul

On Wed, 13 Aug 2003, Paul Sorenson wrote:
> How can I have SQL queries (ODBB/Windows) return dates (cf text) for
> date columns?
> 
> I can successfully query and ODBC database with R.  I can subsequently
> convert the text representations of dates in columns using as.POSIXxx
> functions but I figured there must be a way to achieve this at the time
> of the query.
If you are using the ROBDC package, no.  Perhaps you would contribute an 
extension to RODBC that allows this?  (Did you look at the TODO file in 
the package?)

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

Brian,

Thanks - no I didn't check the TODO.  Given that I am an R newbie my first
assumption was that I had misunderstood the documentation.

Certainly if I can get my head around the RODBC source (and the R
"way") then I could have a crack at extending it.

paul

-----Original Message-----
From: Prof Brian Ripley [mailto:ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk]
Sent: Wednesday, 13 August 2003 3:16 PM
To: Paul Sorenson
Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: Re: [R] SQL Dates


On Wed, 13 Aug 2003, Paul Sorenson wrote:
> How can I have SQL queries (ODBB/Windows) return dates (cf text) for
> date columns?
> 
> I can successfully query and ODBC database with R.  I can subsequently
> convert the text representations of dates in columns using as.POSIXxx
> functions but I figured there must be a way to achieve this at the time
> of the query.
If you are using the ROBDC package, no.  Perhaps you would contribute an 
extension to RODBC that allows this?  (Did you look at the TODO file in 
the package?)

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595