Problem with format data

[Alessandro Natale]

Hello to all,

i'm a newbie user to OpenRefine and I have a problem with the format data.

I have a big excel file with a data column. (like the image)

When I imported the file in OpenRefine, the format of the column is like this image

There is a method to convert this strange data in dd/mm/yyyy string or yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ssZ?

thank you so much...Alessandro

[Tom Morris]

Hi Alessandro. Welcome to the OpenRefine community! Check out the toString function in the Transform dialog. It accepts a format string which you can use to format the date in whatever way you'd like. https://docs.openrefine.org/manual/grelfunctions/#tostringo-string-format-optional

Tom

[Alessandro Natale]

Thanks Tom for the reply!

Unfortunately, the function you suggested does not work. This is the error: "Error: toString accepts an object and an optional second argument containing a date format string".

 I solved it in an "alternative" way: I converted the excel file into a csv file and now the date-fields are seen in the classic O.R format .. I think the problem is to be associated with excel and its management of dates and in particular with the "cell format" which can be customized. By turning the excel file into csv instead, I believe these formatting settings are lost, making it easier for O.R. recognize the format of the fields.