[R] HMisc describe -- error with dates

[Frank E Harrell Jr]

On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 20:40:50 -0500 (EST)
"Gabor Grothendieck" <ggrothendieck at myway.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> dates is part of chron.  There may be something wrong in 
> Hmisc's detection of chron objects.
> 
> > chron(1)
> [1] 01/02/70
> 
> > isChron(chron(1))
> FALSE
> 
> ---
>  
> Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2003 20:06:38 -0500 
> From: <tmurph6 at po-box.mcgill.ca>
> To: Frank E Harrell Jr <feh3k at spamcop.net> 
> Cc: <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch> 
> Subject: Re: [R] HMisc describe -- error with dates 
> 
>  
>  
> I am using the chron package. I have no preference for which function I
> use. I just want the most reliable format for HMisc functions and
> general plotting. I like the ddmonyyy formats (e.g. 11NOV2003). What
> would you recommend?

I like POSIX but chron should be workable.  The fix for isChron in Hmisc
is:

function(x) {
  cl <- class(x)
  dc <- if(.R.) c('POSIXt','POSIXct','dates','times','chron') else
                c('timeDate','date','dates','times','chron')
  length(cl) && any(cl %in% dc)
}

But describe also runs this command:

  if(isdatetime) notime <- all(format(x.unique,"%H%M%S")=='000000')

and such calls to format for chron objects (which actually calls
format.dates if x.unique is a dates object) do not work.  So a few more
modifications will need to be made in describe to work with chron objects,
when time allows.

Frank

> 
> Thank you!
> 
> Quoting Frank E Harrell Jr <feh3k at spamcop.net>:
> 
> > On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 18:28:24 -0500
> > tmurph6 at po-box.mcgill.ca wrote:
> > 
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> > > I am trying to use HMisc describe on a data frame. I have specified
> > > certain variables as dates using, for example:
> > > 
> > > df1$aidsdate <- dates(aidsdate,format="day.mon.year",
> > > origin=c(month = 1, day = 1, year = 1960))
> > > 
> > > When I use describe on the dataframe I get this error:
> > > 
> > > Error in Ops.dates(weights, x) : * not defined for chron objects
> > > 
> > > Has anyone had this problem? I had used the same method with an
> > > older version of R and HMisc and it worked. 
> > > 
> > > Should be be formatting date variables differently?
> > > 
> > > Thank you!
> > > 
> > > Sincerely,
> > > Tanya Murphy
> > > 
> > 
> > In recent versions, describe for R recognizes date/times by one of the
> > following classes: 'POSIXt','POSIXct','chron'. If you really need to
> > use another date format I could be talked into extending the code for
> > that if you can remind me where dates( ) is found. -Frank
> > 
> > ---
> > Frank E Harrell Jr Professor and Chair School of Medicine
> > Department of Biostatistics Vanderbilt University
> >
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list
> https://www.stat.math.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help


---
Frank E Harrell Jr    Professor and Chair            School of Medicine
                      Department of Biostatistics    Vanderbilt University