Question

I am trying to use strptime() to parse dates from a factor variable–but there is a catch. My dates (incorrectly) list the days and the month as SINGLE rather than DOUBLE DIGITS. For example, my date would say: 5/5/2012 14:02 instead of 05/05/2012 14:02.

Thus, NA values are returned when I run the code:

strptime(var,"%m/%d/%y %H:%M")

Is there a fix?

Answer 1

Capital Y will do it:

test <- "5/5/2012 14:02"
strptime(test,"%m/%d/%Y %H:%M")
[1] "2012-05-05 14:02:00"