R help - Jul 2012 - calculating the difference between days?

Hi List,

I have one column of beginning dates and one column of ending dates, I want
to find their difference.  And I want to ignore the trailing zeros,
basically everything after the first colon mark.

Begin_date                           End_date
01JAN2000:00:00:00:000       02FEB2002:00:00:00:000
24MAR2012:00:00:00:000       18MAY2012:00:00:00:000
01OCT2003:00:00:00:000       02FEB2004:00:00:00:000
01JAN2000:00:00:00:000       02FEB2000:00:00:00:000
01JAN2000:00:00:00:000       02FEB2000:00:00:00:000

Thanks,

Mike

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Hi,

Try this:

dat3<-read.table(text="
Begin_date????????????????????????? End_date
01JAN2000:00:00:00:000????? 02FEB2002:00:00:00:000
24MAR2012:00:00:00:000????? 18MAY2012:00:00:00:000
01OCT2003:00:00:00:000????? 02FEB2004:00:00:00:000
01JAN2000:00:00:00:000????? 02FEB2000:00:00:00:000
01JAN2000:00:00:00:000????? 02FEB2000:00:00:00:000
",sep="",header=TRUE)

dat3$Begin_date<-strptime(dat3[,1],format="%d%b%Y:%H:%M:%S")
dat3$End_date<-strptime(dat3[,2],format="%d%b%Y:%H:%M:%S")

?difftime(dat3[,1],dat3[,2])
Time differences in days
[1] -763.0000? -55.0000 -124.0417? -32.0000? -32.0000
attr(,"tzone")
[1] ""

A.K.

----- Original Message -----
From: C W <tmrsg11 at gmail.com>
To: r-help <r-help at r-project.org>
Cc: 
Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2012 1:22 PM
Subject: [R] calculating the difference between days?

Hi List,

I have one column of beginning dates and one column of ending dates, I want
to find their difference.? And I want to ignore the trailing zeros,
basically everything after the first colon mark.

Begin_date? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?  End_date
01JAN2000:00:00:00:000? ? ?  02FEB2002:00:00:00:000
24MAR2012:00:00:00:000? ? ?  18MAY2012:00:00:00:000
01OCT2003:00:00:00:000? ? ?  02FEB2004:00:00:00:000
01JAN2000:00:00:00:000? ? ?  02FEB2000:00:00:00:000
01JAN2000:00:00:00:000? ? ?  02FEB2000:00:00:00:000

Thanks,

Mike

??? [[alternative HTML version deleted]]

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