Right here, right now
In R, dates are represented by Date objects, while times are represented by POSIXct objects. Under the hood, however, these dates and times are simple numerical values. Date objects store the number of days since the 1st of January in 1970. POSIXct objects on the other hand, store the number of seconds since the 1st of January in 1970.
The 1st of January in 1970 is the common origin for representing times and dates in a wide range of programming languages. There is no particular reason for this; it is a simple convention. Of course, it's also possible to create dates and times before 1970; the corresponding numerical values are simply negative in this case.
This exercise is part of the course
Intermediate R
Exercise instructions
Hands-on interactive exercise
Have a go at this exercise by completing this sample code.
# Get the current date: today
# See what today looks like under the hood
# Get the current time: now
# See what now looks like under the hood