r - Guard against accidental time-zone conversion

Question

In R, I have a bunch of datetime values that I measure in GMT. I keep running into accidents where some function or another loses the timezone on my values, or even loses the class name. Even on functions so basic as c() and unlist():

> dput(x)
structure(1317830532, class = c("POSIXct", "POSIXt"), tzone = "GMT")
> dput(c(x))
structure(1317830532, class = c("POSIXct", "POSIXt"))
> dput(list(x))
list(structure(1317830532, class = c("POSIXct", "POSIXt"), tzone = "GMT"))
> dput(unlist(list(x)))
1317830532

I feel like I'm a hair's breadth away from having a real Mars Climate Orbiter moment if this happens when I least expect it. Anyone have any strategies for making sure their dates "stay put"?

Answer 1

This behaviour is documented in ?c, ?DateTimeClasses and ?unlist:

From ?DateTimeClasses:

Using c on "POSIXlt" objects converts them to the current time zone, and on "POSIXct" objects drops any "tzone" attributes (even if they are all marked with the same time zone).*

From ?c:

c is sometimes used for its side effect of removing attributes except names.*

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That said, my testing indicates that the integrity of your data remains intact, despite using c or unlist. For example:

x <- structure(1317830532, class = c("POSIXct", "POSIXt"), 
                 tzone = "GMT")
y <- structure(1317830532+3600, class = c("POSIXct", "POSIXt"), 
                 tzone = "PST8PDT")
x
[1] "2011-10-05 16:02:12 GMT"

y
[1] "2011-10-05 10:02:12 PDT"

strftime(c(x, y), format="%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S", tz="GMT")
[1] "2011/10/05 16:02:12" "2011/10/05 17:02:12"

strftime(c(x, y), format="%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S", tz="PST8PDT")
[1] "2011/10/05 09:02:12" "2011/10/05 10:02:12"

strftime(unlist(y), format="%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S", tz="PST8PDT")
[1] "2011/10/05 10:02:12"

Your Mars Rover should be OK if you use R to keep track of dates.