Michael Toth explains some of the functionality available in base R (that is, not packages like lubridate) for working with dates:
When working with R date formats, you’re generally going to be trying to accomplish one of two different but related goals:
1. Converting a character string like “
Jan 30 1989” to a Date type2. Getting an R Date object to print in a specific format for a graph or other output
You may need to handle both of these goals in the same analysis, but it’s best to think of them as two separate exercises. Knowing which goal you are trying to accomplish is important because you will need to use different functions to accomplish each of these. Let’s tackle them one at a time.
There are some good insights in the post. H/T R-bloggers