On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 11:02 PM, Shi, Tao <shida...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Hi Ben, > > That must be the case! In fact if I do: > >> difftime(strptime("24NOV2004", format="%d%b%Y"), >> strptime("13MAY2004",format="%d%b%Y"), units="days", tz="GMT") > Time difference of 195 days > > > which supports your claim. > > Can someone from the R development team confirm this?
Combining empirical results with the documentation (you can read more details about how timezones and dates are handled at ?DateTimeClasses ) which states that dst is used for relevant timezones (although this behavior can be OS dependent), this is not really necessary. For example, note that if one goes to a time before daylight savings: > difftime(strptime("24NOV1902", format="%d%b%Y"), > strptime("13MAY1902",format="%d%b%Y"), units="days") Time difference of 195 days and that the hours match exactly what one would expect given dst. > difftime(strptime("24NOV2004", format="%d%b%Y"), > strptime("13MAY2004",format="%d%b%Y"), units="hours") Time difference of 4681 hours > 195 * 24 + 1 [1] 4681 In short, difftime() is performing as stated and documented (if slightly unexpected at first glance). Cheers, Josh > > Thanks! > > ...Tao > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- >> From:Ben Bolker <bbol...@gmail.com> >> To:r-h...@stat.math.ethz.ch >> Cc: >> Sent:Friday, October 29, 2010 7:54:53 PM >> Subject:Re: [R] date calculation >> >> >> Shi, Tao <shidaxia <at> >> href="http://yahoo.com">yahoo.com> writes: > >> Could someone >> explain to me why the following result is not a integer? >> >> > >> difftime(strptime("24NOV2004", format="%d%b%Y"), strptime("13MAY2004", >> >> >format="%d%b%Y"), units="days") >> Time difference of 195.0417 >> days > > Presumably because this goes across a daylight-savings >> time > adjustment? 0.0417=1/24 days is 1 hour ... > > Ben >> Bolker > > ______________________________________________ > >> ymailto="mailto:R-help@r-project.org" >> href="mailto:R-help@r-project.org">R-help@r-project.org mailing list > >> href="https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help" target=_blank >> >https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting >> guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, >> minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > -- Joshua Wiley Ph.D. Student, Health Psychology University of California, Los Angeles http://www.joshuawiley.com/ ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.