properly handle dates

R/helpers.R

@@ -37,7 +37,12 @@
 
   for(i in seq_along(idVars)){
     # set the desired type
-    class(input[[which(names(idVars)[i] == names(input))]]) <- idVars[[i]]$datype
+
+    if(idVars[[i]]$datype == "Date"){
+      input[[which(names(idVars)[i] == names(input))]] <- as.Date(input[[which(names(idVars)[i] == names(input))]], tryFormats = c("%Y-%m-%d"), optional = TRUE)
+    } else {
+      class(input[[which(names(idVars)[i] == names(input))]]) <- idVars[[i]]$datype
+    }
 
   }
 

R/setIDVar.R

@@ -9,7 +9,9 @@
 #' @param name [\code{character(1)}]\cr Name of the new identifying variable.
 #' @param type [\code{character(1)}]\cr data type of the new identifying
 #'   variable. Possible values are \code{"c/character"}, \code{"i/integer"},
-#'   \code{"n/numeric"}, \code{"l/logical"}, \code{"D/date"} or \code{"_/skip"}.
+#'   \code{"n/numeric"}, \code{"l/logical"}, \code{"D/Date"} or \code{"_/skip"}.
+#'   For \code{"D/Date"}, the value has to follow the form \code{YYYY-MM-DD},
+#'   where dates that don't match that are replaced by NA.
 #' @param value [\code{character(1)}]\cr In case the variable is an implicit
 #'   variable (i.e., which is not in the origin table), specify it here.
 #' @param columns [\code{integerish(.)}]\cr The column(s) in which the