R/can.posix.R

In decisionpatterns/date.reader: This packages extends type.convert and read.table to automatically detect and coerce date fields to POSIX.

#' can.posix
#' 
#' @param x character; values to parse
#'
#' @param nTrials integer; number of strings to check before deciding
#' the format
#' 
#' @param nErrors integer; the number of unparsable strings to allow. 
#' If the number of unparseable strings exceeds nErrors, return NA,
#' which means that the strings are either not dates, or not a consistent
#' format.
#'
#'
#' @return logical. If the values can be interpreted as dates (with
#' the same format), it returns TRUE. It returns false if they cannot 
#' be interpreted as dates, or if there is no consistent format.
#'
#' @seealso 
#'   \code{\link{which.format}}
#'   
#' @examples 
#'   can.posix("12-11-10")
#'   can.posix("13-13-13")
#'      
#' @include which.format.R
#'         
#' @export

can.posix <- function( x, nTrials=min(length(x),100), nErrors= 0) {
  format <- which.format(x, nTrials=nTrials, nErrors=nErrors)

  return (! is.na(format))
  
}