format_dates: Automated date parsing from mixed vector of strings

In dkrozelle/toolboxR: Collection of functions and scripts for bioinformatics.

Description

This function will attempt to match each string value to an appropriate date and export harmonized string format. Currently it is limited to recognizing mixtures of Excel integer dates and string dates formatted in a single specified order (e.g. mdy for month-day-year).

Usage

format_dates(x, input.order = "dmy", output.format = "%Y-%m-%d",
  default = "keep")

Arguments

input.order	Character string designating what order the input string currently exist. Possible values= "dmy", "ymd", and "mdy". Additional symbols are ignored (2017-10-31 == 2017/10/31 == 20171031)
output.format	Character string passed to format function to specify desired output
default	Non-NULL character to return if unable to parse date. Specifying default = "keep" will retain the unchanged original value.

Value

character vector of parsable dates in format *output.format*

dkrozelle/toolboxR documentation built on May 15, 2019, 9:13 a.m.