Shaping data with common functions

In this section, we will talk about useful tools for shaping data that can be applied to almost any analytical program. There are lots of other tips and tricks that don’t fit nicely in any other section, but they are still important for you to know. Again, everything here, like the exam, is vendor-neutral. These are all concepts that can be executed in a wide range of data analytic tools and software.

Working with dates

Working as a data analyst, you will quickly learn that date variables are terrible. Every program handles them slightly differently and getting exactly what you want out of them is never easy. There are a few things that will help a little.

Know how to break up a date variable. This changes from program to program, but it is important to learn the basics of how to extract a day, month, or a year from a date variable. You can try to parse it using a simple delimiter, telling the program to break up this variable every...