R: Date-time Conversion Functions

as.POSIX* {base} | R Documentation

## Date-time Conversion Functions

### Description

Functions to manipulate objects of classes `"POSIXlt"` and `"POSIXct"` representing calendar dates and times.

### Usage

    as.POSIXct(x, tz = "", ...)
    as.POSIXlt(x, tz = "", ...)

    ## S3 method for class 'character'
    as.POSIXlt(x, tz = "", format, ...)

    ## S3 method for class 'numeric'
    as.POSIXlt(x, tz = "", origin, ...)

    ## S3 method for class 'POSIXlt'
    as.double(x, ...)

### Arguments

`x` | An object to be converted.
`tz` | A timezone specification to be used for the conversion, if one is required. System-specific (see time zones), but `""` is the current timezone, and `"GMT"` is UTC (Universal Time, Coordinated).
`...` | further arguments to be passed to or from other methods.
`format` | character string giving a date-time format as used by `strptime`.
`origin` | a date-time object, or something which can be coerced by `as.POSIXct(tz="GMT")` to such an object.

### Details

The `as.POSIX*` functions convert an object to one of the two classes used to represent date/times (calendar dates plus time to the nearest second). They can convert a wide variety of objects, including objects of the other class and of classes `"Date"`, `"date"` (from package date), `"chron"` and `"dates"` (from package chron) to these classes. Dates without times are treated as being at midnight UTC.

They can also convert character strings of the formats `"2001-02-03"` and `"2001/02/03"` optionally followed by white space and a time in the format `"14:52"` or `"14:52:03"`. (Formats such as `"01/02/03"` are ambiguous but can be converted via a format specification by `strptime`.) Fractional seconds are allowed. Alternatively, `format` can be specified for character vectors or factors: if it is not specified and no standard format works for all non-`NA` inputs an error is thrown.

If `format` is specified, remember that some of the format specifications are locale-specific, and you may need to set the `LC_TIME` category appropriately via `Sys.setlocale`. This most often affects the use of `%b`, `%B` (month names) and `%p` (AM/PM).

Logical `NA`s can be converted to either of the classes, but no other logical vectors can be.

The `as.double` method converts `"POSIXlt"` objects to `"POSIXct"`.

If you are given a numeric time as the number of seconds since an epoch, see the examples.

Character input is first converted to class `"POSIXlt"` by `strptime`: numeric input is first converted to `"POSIXct"`. Any conversion that needs to go between the two date-time classes requires a timezone: conversion from `"POSIXlt"` to `"POSIXct"` will validate times in the selected timezone. One issue is what happens at transitions to and from DST, for example in the UK

    as.POSIXct(strptime('2011-03-27 01:30:00', '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'))
    as.POSIXct(strptime('2010-10-31 01:30:00', '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'))

are respectively invalid (the clocks went forward at 1:00 GMT to 2:00 BST) and ambiguous (the clocks went back at 2:00 BST to 1:00 GMT). What happens in such cases is OS-specific: one should expect the first to be `NA`, but the second could be interpreted as either BST or GMT (and common OSes give both possible values). Note too (see `strftime`), OS facilities may not format invalid times correctly.

### Value

`as.POSIXct` and `as.POSIXlt` return an object of the appropriate class. If `tz` was specified, `as.POSIXlt` will give an appropriate `"tzone"` attribute. Date-times known to be invalid will be returned as `NA`.

### Note

Some of the concepts used have to be extended backwards in time (the usage is proleptic). For example, the origin of time for the `"POSIXct"` class, ‘1970-01-01 00:00.00 UTC’, is before UTC was defined. More importantly, conversion is done assuming the Gregorian calendar which was introduced in 1582 and not used universally until the 20th century. One of the re-interpretations assumed by ISO 8601:2004 is that there was a year zero, even though current year numbering (and zero) is a much later concept (525 AD for year numbers from 1 AD).

If you want to extract specific aspects of a time (such as the day of the week) just convert it to class `"POSIXlt"` and extract the relevant component(s) of the list, or if you want a character representation (such as a named day of the week) use the `format` method.

If a timezone is needed and that specified is invalid on your system, what happens is system-specific but attempts to set it will probably be ignored.

### See Also

DateTimeClasses for details of the classes; `strptime` for conversion to and from character representations.

`Sys.timezone` for details of the (system-specific) naming of time zones.

locales for locale-specific aspects.

### Examples

    (z <- Sys.time())             # the current datetime, as class "POSIXct"
    unclass(z)                    # a large integer
    floor(unclass(z)/86400)       # the number of days since 1970-01-01 (UTC)
    (z <- as.POSIXlt(Sys.time())) # the current datetime, as class "POSIXlt"
    unlist(unclass(z))            # a list shown as a named vector

    ## suppose we have a time in seconds since 1960-01-01 00:00:00 GMT
    ## (the origin used by SAS)
    z <- 1472562988
    # ways to convert this
    as.POSIXct(z, origin="1960-01-01")                # local
    as.POSIXct(z, origin="1960-01-01", tz="GMT")      # in UTC
    as.POSIXct(z, origin=ISOdatetime(1960,1,1,0,0,0)) # local
    ISOdatetime(1960,1,1,0,0,0) + z                   # local

    ## SPSS dates (R-help 2006-02-16)
    z <- c(10485849600, 10477641600, 10561104000, 10562745600)
    as.Date(as.POSIXct(z, origin="1582-10-14", tz="GMT"))

    as.POSIXlt(Sys.time(), "GMT") # the current time in UTC

    ## Not run: ## These may not be correct names on your system
    as.POSIXlt(Sys.time(), "America/New_York")  # in New York
    as.POSIXlt(Sys.time(), "EST5EDT")           # alternative.
    as.POSIXlt(Sys.time(), "EST" )   # somewhere in Eastern Canada
    as.POSIXlt(Sys.time(), "HST")    # in Hawaii
    as.POSIXlt(Sys.time(), "Australia/Darwin")

    ## End(Not run)

[Package base version 2.15.1 Index]