Convert four digit year values to a date type

Question

I\'ve an integer column in my dataset which has four digit year values, like:

 2001 2002 2002 2002 2003 2005 

I am trying to convert the fo

Answer 1

As already recognized by the OP, a year alone does not make up a valid date because month and day are not specified.

However, some date and date-time conversion functions, e.g., ymd(), parse_date_time(), in the lubridate package recognize a parameter truncated to allow for parsing of incomplete dates:

yrs <- c(2001, 2002, 2002, 2002, 2003, 2005)
lubridate::ymd(yrs, truncated = 2L)

[1] "2001-01-01" "2002-01-01" "2002-01-01" "2002-01-01" "2003-01-01" "2005-01-01"

The years have been completed by 1st of January to make a valid date. The result is of class Date.