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Using read_excel() from the readxl package to read in a spreadsheet that has a column of dates I see upon inspection numerous "1899-12-31 00:00:00 UTC". These correspond to the "1/1/1900 0:00" which I see from inside Excel.

Should I be concerned about this seeming one day difference? and why doesn't this date show up in R as "1900-01-01 00:00:00 UTC"?

I don't see a discrepancy with respect to the other dates. "2/22/2008 11:10" in Excel for instance comes across as "2008-02-22 11:10:55 UTC" in R.

lebelinoz
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Kerry
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    I suspect that you will see the discrepancy for all dates prior to `1 Mar 1900` due to the deliberate introduction, in Excel (but not VBA) of `29 Feb 1900` supposedly for compatibility with an existing bug in Lotus 123 at the time Excel was introduced. Whether you should be concerned, or not, depends on what you are doing with the information. I would be concerned about the 10 year discrepancy you report in your second example, though I suspect that may be a typo. – Ron Rosenfeld Feb 19 '16 at 02:06
  • Thanks for that piece of trivia. I will sleep better tonight. As for the 10 year discrepancy, it was a typo. – Kerry Feb 19 '16 at 05:47

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