The R list does not recognize .csv files so your attachment got stripped. It is picky that way. Tacking .txt to the end might trick it into preserving the attachment.
Dataset <- read.table() created a data.frame called Dataset so the second command was redundant. Probably better would be read.csv() which automatically uses "," as the separator. Also including the argument as.is=TRUE will prevent conversion of character fields to factors. Then your conversion to dates should work once you add a day to the month-year format (e.g. first of the month or middle of the month): > Test <- read.csv(text='"TransitDate", "CargoTons" + "Apr-2013", 50 + "Jun-2013", 40 + "Jul-2013", 30', as.is=TRUE) > Test$TransitDate <- as.Date(paste0("01-", Test$TransitDate), "%d-%b-%Y") > str(Test) 'data.frame': 3 obs. of 2 variables: $ TransitDate: Date, format: "2013-04-01" "2013-06-01" ... $ CargoTons : int 50 40 30 > Test TransitDate CargoTons 1 2013-04-01 50 2 2013-06-01 40 3 2013-07-01 30 ------------------------------------- David L Carlson Department of Anthropology Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77840-4352 -----Original Message----- From: R-help [mailto:r-help-boun...@r-project.org] On Behalf Of Paul Bernal Sent: Monday, June 19, 2017 2:07 PM To: r-help@r-project.org Subject: [R] How to Transform a Factor Variable into a Date Dear all, Hope you are doing great. I have a .csv file that I read into R, the .csv file consistss of two fields (TransitDate and CargoTons). The TransitDate I formatted from Excel in the fashion mmm-yy (e.g.: Apr-2013). However R does not recognize the field TransitDate as a date field. Here is the code: library(lubridate) Dataset <- read.table("U:/NEWCargoData.csv", header=TRUE, sep=",", na.strings="NA", dec=".", strip.white=TRUE) DatasetFrame <- data.frame(Dataset) DatasetFrame$TransitDate <- as.Date(DatasetFrame$TransitDate, format = "%b-%y") Now, when I do DatasetFrame[1,1], the following happens: > DatasetFrame[1,1] [1] NA > > DatasetFrame[2,1] [1] NA > Now when I do: > Dataset[1,1] #this is the dataset as was read from my computer [1] Jun-11 62 Levels: Apr-13 Apr-14 Apr-15 Apr-16 Apr-17 Aug-13 Aug-14 Aug-15 Aug-16 Dec-12 Dec-13 Dec-14 ... Sep-16 > I am also attaching the .csv file for your reference. How can I do to get R to convert TransitDate into an actual date field? R is not recognizing it as a date. Any help will be greatly appreciated, Best regards, Paul ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see 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 -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see 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.