[R] Excel export date format

[(Ted Harding)]

On 09-Jul-11 08:08:56, Duncan Mackay wrote:
> At 09:31 09/07/2011, you wrote:
>>Hi folks,
>>I have been tormented for some time by Excel's habit of exporting 
>>dates to CSV files as mm/dd/yyyy format even if the dates are 
>>formatted dd/mm/yyyy in the display. What's worse, if there are 
>>dates that are of ambiguous (6/6/2011) and unambiguous (16/6/2011) 
>>format in the same column, Excel reformats the unambiguous dates and 
>>leaves the ambiguous ones as they were! Yesterday I discovered that 
>>if the dates are in international format (2011-6-6) Excel seems to 
>>export them as dd/mm/yyyy, and all correctly. As I suspect that 
>>there are a lot of R users who suffer from this, I thought I would 
>>pass on the info.
>>
>>Jim
>>
>>______________________________________________
>>R-help at 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.
>>
> Hi Jim
> 
> I have had problems with Excel dates when formatted as dd/mm/yyyy 
> Excel changes some to mm/dd/yyyy  for months Oct/Nov and Jan/Feb and
> days 1-9
> so dd/mm/yyyy becomes mm/dd/yy 01/10/2005  becomes 10/01/2005.
> It happens with earlier versions of Excel  - I do not know what 
> happens with the later versions as I have not experienced them as much.
> Sometimes if data has been imported from various sources with 
> different date formatting the resultant date format may differ.
> 
> I do not know if it will shed some light on the problem.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Duncan
> 
> Duncan Mackay
> Department of Agronomy and Soil Science
> University of New England
> ARMIDALE NSW 2351
> Email: home mackay at northnet.com.au

I would not dare to suggest the above exchange for inclusion in
the Fortunes package. Fortunes are supposed to bring us joy.

But there is perhaps scope for a package Misfortunes.
Then, when things are not going well, one can enter

  source(misfortunes)
  misfortune()

and be reminded that, no matter how bad things may seem, others
have suffered worse. This may give some comfort.

Best wishes and good fortune to all,
Ted.

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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding at wlandres.net>
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Date: 09-Jul-11                                       Time: 09:26:36
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