[R] as.POSIXct month problem

[Peter Dalgaard]

guillaume chaumet wrote:
> Thank you for your quick response
> 
> 
>> sessionInfo()
> R version 2.9.2 (2009-08-24)
> x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
> 
> locale:
> LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=fr_FR.UTF-8;LC_COLLATE=fr_FR.UTF-8;LC_MONETARY=fr_FR.UTF-8;LC_MESSAGES=fr_FR.UTF-8;LC_PAPER=fr_FR.UTF-8;LC_NAME=C;LC_ADDRESS=C;LC_TELEPHONE=C;LC_MEASUREMENT=fr_FR.UTF-8;LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
> 
> attached base packages:
> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
> 
> I need to change fr by en?
> 

Probably, since your input is in English.

However, it is still a bit puzzling. I have (on Fedora)

 > x <- c("1jan1960", "2jan1960", "31mar1960", "30jui1960")
 > strptime(x, "%d%b%Y")
[1] "1960-01-01" "1960-01-02" "1960-03-31" NA
 > Sys.setlocale("LC_TIME","fr_FR.UTF-8")
[1] "fr_FR.UTF-8"
 > strptime(x, "%d%b%Y")
[1] "1960-01-01" "1960-01-02" "1960-03-31" "1960-07-30"
 > x <- c("1jan1960", "2jan1960", "31mar1960", "30jul1960")
 > strptime(x, "%d%b%Y")
[1] "1960-01-01" "1960-01-02" "1960-03-31" NA

So there are understandable issues with July (and February, April, May, 
and August), but I don't see any reason to get four NAs. However, you 
are at the mercy of your OS's locale database (you're not saying which 
OS, just that it is a linux variant).

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