[Rd] as.Date.character suggestion

[Peter Langfelder]

That would be my preferred solution, but it would break backwards
compatibility for format="", so others may disagree.

Peter

On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 1:18 PM, Duncan Murdoch
<murdoch.duncan at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 20/08/2014, 4:11 PM, Peter Langfelder wrote:
>> The default format="" in as.Date.character is supremely confusing. The
>> help shows as.Date defined as
>>
>> ## S3 method for class 'character'
>>      as.Date(x, format = "", ...)
>>
>> yet the function behaves very differently when format is not specified
>> and when it is specified to its default:
>>
>> as.Date("2012-01-01")
>> [1] "2012-01-01"
>>> as.Date("2012-01-01", format = "")
>> [1] "2014-08-20"  ### Gives today.
>>
>>
>> The default setting is never used, because if format is not given,
>> values "%Y-%m-%d" and "%Y/%m/%d" are tried for it (rather than "").
>>
>> My suggestion is to leave out the default "" for format in as.Date:
>>
>> as.Date(x, format, ...)
>>
>> If this causes a conflict in the S3 dispatching, at least indicate in
>> the help that the default is never used and the function works
>> differently if format is specified to its default.
>
> Wouldn't it be simpler to change the test from
>
> if (missing(format))
>
> to
>
> if (format == "")
>
> ?
>
> Duncan Murdoch
>