Convert list / vector of date format strings to posix date class with R

Question

I have a list of strings that are in our date format, and I want to convert it to a posix date list that I can manipulate with R, how can I do this?

This is what I have, but I end up with a list of lists:

a <- c("2009.01.01 00:00:00", "2009.01.01 00:00:00") z <- lapply(a,function(x){strptime(x, "%Y.%m.%d %H:%M:%S")}) > z <- lapply(a,function(x){strptime(x, "%Y.%m.%d %H:%M:%S")}) > summary(z) Length Class Mode [1,] 1 POSIXlt list [2,] 1 POSIXlt list 

Answer 1

strptime vectorized:

 a <- c("2009.01.01 12:20:10", "2009.01.01 04:12:14") > out <- strptime(a, "%Y.%m.%d %H:%M:%S") > str(out) POSIXlt[1:2], format: "2009-01-01 12:20:10" "2009-01-01 04:12:14"