convertDates: Converts all date columns in a data.table from character to...

In CALIBERdatamanage: Data Management Tools for CALIBER Datasets

Description

Applies textToDate in the CALIBERcodelists package repeatedly to convert each relevant column from character to IDate (integer date).

Usage

convertDates(data, datecolnames = NULL, verbose = TRUE)

Arguments

data	data.table which contains the columns to be converted.
datecolnames	optional vector of names of date columns. If some of these columns are not in data, they are ignored.
verbose	whether to print a message stating which columns were converted.

Details

If date conversion is unsuccessful, the column is left in its original form (character or factor).

Value

The modified data.table or ffdf. If data is a data.table, it is also updated by reference.

See Also

textToDate

Examples

# Create a cohort for testing
mydata <- data.table(anonpatid=1:3,
	indexdate=c('2010-01-01', '2009-03-05', '2008-05-06'),
	deathdate=c(NA, '', '2009-09-08'))
# Convert dates in ffdf
myffdf <- as.ffdf(mydata)
myffdf <- convertDates(myffdf)
print(myffdf)

# Convert dates in data.table
# (updated by reference so no assignment is needed)
convertDates(mydata) # is the same as mydata <- convertDates(mydata)
print(mydata)

CALIBERdatamanage documentation built on Nov. 23, 2021, 3 p.m.