[Rd] as.Date.character suggestion

[Gabriel Becker]

Could do both to preserve bc...

if(missing(format) || !nchar(format))

~G


On Wed, Aug 20, 2014 at 1:50 PM, Peter Langfelder <
peter.langfelder at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> >
>
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>



-- 
Gabriel Becker
Graduate Student
Statistics Department
University of California, Davis

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