Lubridate's parsing functions read strings into R as
POSIXct date-time objects. Users should choose the
function whose name models the order in which the year
('y'), month ('m') and day ('d') elements appear the
string to be parsed: dmy
,
myd
, ymd
, ydm
,
dym
, mdy
,
ymd_hms
).
Lubridate can also parse partial dates from strings into
Period-class
objects with the functions
hm
, hms
and ms
.
Manipulating dates
Lubridate distinguishes between moments in time (known as
instants
) and spans of time (known as time
spans, see Timespan-class
). Time spans are
further separated into Duration-class
,
Period-class
and
Interval-class
objects.
Instants
Instants are specific moments of time. Date, POSIXct, and
POSIXlt are the three object classes Base R recognizes as
instants. is.Date
tests whether an object
inherits from the Date class. is.POSIXt
tests whether an object inherits from the POSIXlt or
POSIXct classes. is.instant
tests whether
an object inherits from any of the three classes.
now
returns the current system time as a
POSIXct object. today
returns the current
system date. For convenience, 1970-01-01 00:00:00 is
saved to origin
. This is the instant from
which POSIXct times are calculated. Try unclass(now()) to
see the numeric structure that underlies POSIXct objects.
Each POSIXct object is saved as the number of seconds it
occurred after 1970-01-01 00:00:00.
Conceptually, instants are a combination of measurements
on different units (i.e, years, months, days, etc.). The
individual values for these units can be extracted from
an instant and set with the accessor functions
second
, minute
,
hour
, day
,
yday
, mday
,
wday
, week
,
month
, year
,
tz
, and dst
. Note: the
accessor functions are named after the singular form of
an element. They shouldn't be confused with the period
helper functions that have the plural form of the units
as a name (e.g, seconds
).
Rounding dates
Instants can be rounded to a convenient unit using the
functions ceiling_date
,
floor_date
andround_date
.
Time zones
Lubridate provides two helper functions for working with
time zones. with_tz
changes the time zone
in which an instant is displayed. The clock time
displayed for the instant changes, but the moment of time
described remains the same. force_tz
changes only the time zone element of an instant. The
clock time displayed remains the same, but the resulting
instant describes a new moment of time.
Timespans
A timespan is a length of time that may or may not be
connected to a particular instant. For example, three
months is a timespan. So is an hour and a half. Base R
uses difftime class objects to record timespans. However,
people are not always consistent in how they expect time
to behave. Sometimes the passage of time is a monotone
progression of instants that should be as mathematically
reliable as the number line. On other occasions time must
follow complex conventions and rules so that the clock
times we see reflect what we expect to observe in terms
of daylight, season, and congruence with the atomic
clock. To better navigate the nuances of time, lubridate
creates three additional timespan classes, each with its
own specific and consistent behavior:
Interval-class
, Period-class
and Duration-class
.
is.difftime
tests whether an object
inherits from the difftime class.
is.timespan
tests whether an object
inherits from any of the four timespan classes.
Durations
Durations measure the exact amount of time that occurs between two instants. This can create unexpected results in relation to clock times if a leap second, leap year, or change in daylight savings time (DST) occurs in the interval.
Functions for working with durations include
is.duration
, as.duration
and
new_duration
. dseconds
,
dminutes
, dhours
,
ddays
, dweeks
,
dyears
and new_duration
quickly create durations of convenient lengths.
Periods
Periods measure the change in clock time that occurs between two instants. Periods provide robust predictions of clock time in the presence of leap seconds, leap years, and changes in DST.
Functions for working with periods include
is.period
, as.period
and
new_period
. seconds
,
minutes
, hours
,
days
, weeks
,
months
and years
quickly
create periods of convenient lengths.
Intervals
Intervals are timespans that begin at a specific instant and end at a specific instant. Intervals retain complete information about a timespan. They provide the only reliable way to convert between periods and durations.
Functions for working with intervals include
is.interval
, as.interval
,
new_interval
, int_shift
,
int_flip
, int_aligns
,
int_overlaps
, and %within%
.
Intervals can also be manipulated with intersect, union,
and setdiff().
Miscellaneous
decimal_date
converts an instant to a
decimal of its year. leap_year
tests
whether an instant occurs during a leap year.
pretty.dates
provides a method of making
pretty breaks for date-times lakers
is a
data set that contains information about the Los Angeles
Lakers 2008-2009 basketball season.