Hi Camilo, If I understand the above, you want to find the minimum number of days between two day-month dates when there is no information about the year. I think if you take the difference of the two dates with the same year and the difference of the dates after subtracting a year from the "latest" date, the minimum of the two will be the answer you want.
get_min_date_diff<-function(date1,date2) { d1<-as.Date(date1,"%m-%d") d2<-as.Date(date2,"%m-%d") if(d2 > d1) { d3<- as.Date(paste(date2,as.numeric(format(d2,"%Y"))-1,sep="-"),"%m-%d-%Y") dd1<-d2 - d1 dd2<-d1 - d3 } else { d3<- as.Date(paste(date1,as.numeric(format(d1,"%Y"))-1,sep="-"),"%m-%d-%Y") dd1<-d1 - d2 dd2<-d2 - d3 } return(min(c(dd1,dd2))) } Kind of complicated, and assumes the "%m-%d" format, but it may be what you want. Jim On Sat, Jan 24, 2015 at 4:21 PM, Camilo Mora <cm...@dal.ca> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I am trying to calculate the number of days between any two dates in a year > regardless of the year. Specifically, image two dates: > MonDay1 <- "01-30" #January 30 > MonDay2 <- "12-31" #December 31 > > I want the difference of those two dates to be > MonDay1- MonDay2=30 days #January is closer to December from the prior year > than to the December in the year when January is. > > FYI. this calculation is to count the number of days between any given date > to the peak of the summer, which in the southern hemisphere can be around > December. > > Unfortunately, I have not been able to make R recognize a date as just > Mon-Day. If I try: > MonDay1<-as.Date("01-30",format="%m-%d") # this automatically assigns the > current year > [1] "2015-01-30" > > This following code allows to define just Mon-Day but it is recognized as > character: > format(strptime("07-30", format="%j"), format="%m-%d") > > Any help will be greatly appreciated, > > Thanks, > > Camilo > ______________________________________________ > 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.