R/test_datecol.R

In ropensci/testdat: A suite for running automated tests for data

#' Test for proper formatting in a date column
#' 
#' @param dat data frame to test
#' @param index index of column containing dates
#' @import lubridate
#' @param form a lubridate function giving the format the dates should be in
#' @return returns FALSE if parsing using the function specified in \code{form} fails. If parsing succeeds, the minimum and maximum years in the date column are printed, so that mis-formatted dates (that still pass parse tests) can be detected.
#' @export
test_datecol <- function(dat, index, form = ymd){
    formatted_dates <- suppressWarnings(form(dat[,index]))
    if(any(is.na(formatted_dates))){
        message(paste0('Some dates not in specified format (',
            as.character(quote(ymd)), ')'))
        return(FALSE)
    }
    years <- sapply(formatted_dates, year)
    message(paste('min year:', min(years)))
    message(paste('max year:', max(years)))
    return(TRUE)
}