R help - May 2003 - strptime and non ISO date format

Dear all

I have a character vector of dates something like:

timevec<-c("15.5.2003 00:00", "15.5.2003 00:01",
"15.5.2003 00:02",
"15.5.2003 00:03","15.5.2003 00:04")

and I would like to transform it to some more convenient date class. Is there a 
way how to do it directly without previous reformating to ISO like structure and
adding a seconds to it.

I tried direct transformation but it does not work as I expected (or as I 
understood from help pages :-).
> strptime(timevec,"%m.%d.%y %H:%M")
[1] NA NA NA NA NA

Thank you for any hint.

Best regards.

Petr Pikal
petr.pikal at precheza.cz
p.pik at volny.cz

On Fri, May 16, 2003 at 01:36:04AM +0200, Petr Pikal
wrote:
> I have a character vector of dates something like:
> 
> timevec<-c("15.5.2003 00:00", "15.5.2003 00:01",
"15.5.2003 00:02",
> "15.5.2003 00:03","15.5.2003 00:04")
> 
> and I would like to transform it to some more convenient date class. Is
there a
> way how to do it directly without previous reformating to ISO like
structure and
> adding a seconds to it.
> 
> I tried direct transformation but it does not work as I expected (or as I 
> understood from help pages :-).
> 
> > strptime(timevec,"%m.%d.%y %H:%M")
> [1] NA NA NA NA NA
You have the month and day mixed up, and also asked for two-digit year when
you really have four digits. Correcting both of these does the trick:

edd at chibud:~> R --silent
> timevec<-c("15.5.2003 00:00", "15.5.2003 00:01",
"15.5.2003 00:02",
+ "15.5.2003 00:03","15.5.2003
00:04")
> strptime(timevec,"%d.%m.%Y %H:%M")
[1] "2003-05-15 00:00:00" "2003-05-15 00:01:00"
"2003-05-15 00:02:00"
[4] "2003-05-15 00:03:00" "2003-05-15 00:04:00"

Hth, Dirk

-- 
Don't drink and derive. Alcohol and algebra don't mix.

Thank to Dirk and Patrick. I need to read help pages more 
carefully next time.

On 15 May 2003 at 19:24, Dirk Eddelbuettel wrote:
> On Fri, May 16, 2003 at 01:36:04AM +0200, Petr Pikal wrote:
> > I have a character vector of dates something like:
> > 
> > timevec<-c("15.5.2003 00:00", "15.5.2003
00:01", "15.5.2003 00:02",
> > "15.5.2003 00:03","15.5.2003 00:04")
> > 
> > and I would like to transform it to some more convenient date class.
> > Is there a way how to do it directly without previous reformating to
> > ISO like structure and adding a seconds to it.
> > 
> > I tried direct transformation but it does not work as I expected (or
> > as I understood from help pages :-).
> > 
> > > strptime(timevec,"%m.%d.%y %H:%M")
> > [1] NA NA NA NA NA
> 
> You have the month and day mixed up, and also asked for two-digit year
> when you really have four digits. Correcting both of these does the
> trick:
> 
> edd at chibud:~> R --silent
> > timevec<-c("15.5.2003 00:00", "15.5.2003
00:01", "15.5.2003 00:02",
> + "15.5.2003 00:03","15.5.2003 00:04")
> > strptime(timevec,"%d.%m.%Y %H:%M")
> [1] "2003-05-15 00:00:00" "2003-05-15 00:01:00"
"2003-05-15 00:02:00"
> [4] "2003-05-15 00:03:00" "2003-05-15 00:04:00"
> 
> Hth, Dirk
> 
> -- 
> Don't drink and derive. Alcohol and algebra don't mix.
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
Petr
petr.pikal at precheza.cz
p.pik at volny.cz