anytime() sometimes returns the wrong date

[graham-matt]

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For dates older than 15ish years ago, the anytime() function sometimes returns 11 pm on the day before the correct date.

OS: Windows 10.

Examples of the function returning the day before:

> anytime::anytime("November 1, 2005")
[1] "2005-10-31 23:00:00 EST"
> anytime::anytime("November 1, 2000")
[1] "2000-10-31 23:00:00 EST"

Examples of it returning the correct date:

> anytime::anytime("November 1, 2019")
[1] "2019-11-01 EDT"
> anytime::anytime("November 1, 2010")
[1] "2010-11-01 EDT"

(Edited by DEdd. for proper markdown formatting)

[eddelbuettel]

That is likely build / OS dependent via the system time zone library; I have no control over the one in the Windows build.

> anytime::anytime(c("Nov 1, 2000", "Nov 1, 2005", "Nov 1, 2010", "Nov 1, 2019"))
[1] "2000-11-01 CST" "2005-11-01 CST" "2010-11-01 CDT" "2019-11-01 CDT"
> 

Note, however, that many releases ago we also added an alternate second parser using the R engine so maybe try that?

> anytime::anytime(c("2000-11-01", "2005-11-01", "2010-11-01", "2019-11-01"), useR=TRUE)
[1] "2000-11-01 CST" "2005-11-01 CST" "2010-11-01 CDT" "2019-11-01 CDT"
> 

Lastly, anytime always returns a POSIXct object; and its default format omits hours and minutes at midnight; anydate may be what you wanted here all along if you wanted a Date object.

[eddelbuettel]

so maybe try that

... because R ships its own timezone db which may help you when you OS leaves you in the dark as above.