I want to combine two variables into one with a date format

Question

I have a data set with a character column for months (MONTH) and a numeric column indicating years (YEAR). In order to work with it as panel data, I ne

Answer 1

You could simplify the below, but it makes it easier to see what's going on:

library(lubridate)
library(tidyverse)

df2 <- df %>% 
  mutate(TIME = parse_date_time(paste0(MONTH, YEAR), orders = "%b%Y"),
         TIME = as.character(substr(TIME, 6, 7)),
         TIME = paste0(TIME, "-", YEAR))

This is using lubridate - the easiest way to parse dates in R IMO, dplyr from tidyverse and substr from base R.

If you want to keep the date column then just pipe in another mutate and call the new column something different.