The main attribute of time series data is its timestamp, which could be a date object, time object, or other index format depending on the series frequency. Typically while loading raw data, it is not trivial to have the date or time object formatted and ready to use. Therefore, it is most likely that the raw data may require some reformatting before you are able to transform your data into time series format. The ability to work with time and date objects is an essential part of the data preparation process. In this chapter, we will introduce a set of tools and applications for dealing with those objects, starting with R's built-in tools and classes from the base package and moving to the advanced applications of the lubridate package.
In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:
- The date and time formats
- Date and time objects...
