CODEWITHSUNDEEP
r
Jennifer Logan
Jennifer Logan

Reputation: 33

How to use intersect() function with date ranges in R

Here is my code:

a<-"2015-12-13 09:00:00"           
b<-"2015-12-13 12:00:00"
c<-interval(a,b)

d<-"2015-12-13 09:00:00"           
e<-"2015-12-13 12:00:00"
f<-interval(d,e)
h<-intersect(c,f)
h

The values of c,f and h are:

> h
[1] 10800
> c
[1] 2015-12-13 09:00:00 UTC--2015-12-13 12:00:00 UTC
> f
[1] 2015-12-13 09:00:00 UTC--2015-12-13 12:00:00 UTC
>

But, when I give a different date/time range. The intersect function does not work. For example: If I change the time of the variable d and e from 09:00:00-12:00:00 to 09:00:00 - 10:00:00, I am expecting the intersect function to give me the minutes for 1 hour that is common.

a<-"2015-12-13 09:00:00"           
b<-"2015-12-13 12:00:00"
c<-interval(a,b)

d<-"2015-12-13 09:00:00"           
e<-"2015-12-13 10:00:00"
f<-interval(d,e)
h<-intersect(c,f)
h

Output:

numeric(0)
> c
[1] 2015-12-13 09:00:00 UTC--2015-12-13 12:00:00 UTC
> f
[1] 2015-12-13 09:00:00 UTC--2015-12-13 10:00:00 UTC

I get numeric(0). Can someone please help me with this.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 3673

Answers (1)

Col Bates - collynomial
Col Bates - collynomial

Reputation: 662

For the sake of avoiding answering in the comments:

As J_F mentions above, you need to use the intersect function from lubridate. In case you face problems because you need intersect from both lubridate and dplyr you can use the double colon ::.

Double colon :: is used to specify from which package you call a function and overcomes masking. So in your code:

a<-"2015-12-13 09:00:00"           
b<-"2015-12-13 12:00:00"
c<-interval(a,b)

d<-"2015-12-13 09:00:00"           
e<-"2015-12-13 10:00:00"
f<-interval(d,e)
h<-lubridate::intersect(c,f)
h

[1] 2015-12-13 09:00:00 UTC--2015-12-13 10:00:00 UTC

Upvotes: 2

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