[R] Vectors of years, months, and days to dates?

[Rolf Turner]

Daehyok Shin (Peter) wrote:

> Is what I asked such an exceptional case?

	Apparently.

> A lot of data I am dealing with (usually hydrologic data) are
> recorded with three columns of years, months, and days.  In my
> opinion, the direct conversion from numeric vectors of years, months
> and days into some internal representation of date is widely
> supported in most matrix oriented languages (ex. datenum() in
> MATLAB).  Am I really asking an odd operation for date conversion?

	Apparently.  You still haven't given any indication of what's
	wrong with the way R does things, which is perfectly
	transparent and user friendly.  If other packages do things
	in a slightly different way, so what?

> For performance, you are right. The loss of performance is negligible
> when users call it directly.  But, what happens when it is called in
> an iterative loop?  How can we assume some functions are only called
> directly by users in an interactive shell?

	Have you ***any*** evidence that R's procedure degrades
	performance, under any circumstances?  (Apparently not.) In
	that case why are you going on and on about it?

> Please consider positively this kind of simple interface for as.Date.
> [as.Date(c(years, months, days))]

	The standard response to this kind of request is ``R is a
	cooperative endeavour.  Feel free to contribute.''

> I am quite sure this operation will be used widely once implemented.

	Have you ***any*** evidence for this assertion?

> Is there no one supporting my idea?

	Apparently not.

					cheers,

						Rolf Turner
						rolf at math.unb.ca