[R] CSV file and date. Dates are read as factors!

[John Sorkin]

I am using read.csv to read a CSV file (produced by saving an Excel file
as a CSV file). The columns containing dates are being read as factors.
Because of this, I can not compute follow-up time, i.e.
Followup<-postDate-preDate. I would appreciate any suggestion that would
help me read the dates as dates and thus allow me to calculate follow-up
time.
Thanks
John

John Sorkin M.D., Ph.D.
Chief, Biostatistics and Informatics
Baltimore VA Medical Center GRECC and
University of Maryland School of Medicine Claude Pepper OAIC

University of Maryland School of Medicine
Division of Gerontology
Baltimore VA Medical Center
10 North Greene Street
GRECC (BT/18/GR)
Baltimore, MD 21201-1524

410-605-7119 
- NOTE NEW EMAIL ADDRESS:
jsorkin at grecc.umaryland.edu