[R] Covwerting a Date variable from character to Date

[Admire Tarisirayi Chirume]

I kindly request for assistance to convert a Date variable from a character
to be recognised as a date. I used the following command lines.

inflation<-read.csv("Inflation_forecasts_1.csv")
attach(inflation)
inflation[,1:2 ] #subsetting the dataframe
#Renaming variables
inflation<- rename(inflation.df,
                   cpi = CPI,
                   year=period)

#subsetting data April 2020 to current
inflation.2<-data.frame(inflation[-c(1:135),])
class(inflation.2$cpi)
inflation.2$cpi <- as.numeric(as.character(inflation.2$cpi))
* format(as.Date(inflation.2$period), "%Y-%m")*

Having ran the command lines above, the variable period in the attached csv
file remains being read as a character variable. Kindly assist.

Thank you.