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Date to Numerical (RapidMiner Studio Core)

Synopsis

This operator changes the type of the selected date attribute to a numeric type. It also maps all values of this attribute to numeric values. You can specify exactly which component of date or time should be extracted. You can also specify relative to which date or time component information should be extracted.

Description

The Date to Numerical operator provides a lot of flexibility when it comes to selecting a component of date or time. The following components can be selected: millisecond, second, minute, hour, day, week, month, quarter, half year, and year. The most important thing is that these components can be selected relative to other components. For example it is possible to extract the day relative to the week, relative to the month or relative to the year. Suppose the date is 15/Feb/2012. Then the day relative to the month would be 15 because it is the 15th day of the month. And the day relative to the year would be 46 because this is the 46th day of the year. All date and time components can be extracted relative to the most common parent components e.g. month can be calculated relative to the quarter or the year. Similarly second can be calculated relative to the minute, the hour or the day. All date and time components can be extracted relative to the Epoch where Epoch is defined as the date: '01-01-1970 00:00'. If the date attribute has no time information then all calculations on time components will result to 0. All these things can be understood easily by studying the attached Example Process.

Input

  • example set (Data Table)

    This input port expects an ExampleSet. It is the output of the Generate Data operator in the attached Example Process. The output of other operators can also be used as input. It is essential that meta data should be attached with the data for the input because attributes are specified in the meta data. The Generate Data operator provides meta data along-with the data. The ExampleSet should have at least one date attribute because if there is no such attribute, the use of this operator does not make sense.

Output

  • example set (Data Table)

    The ExampleSet with selected date attribute converted to numeric type is output of this port.

  • original (Data Table)

    The ExampleSet that was given as input is passed without changing to the output through this port. This is usually used to reuse the same ExampleSet in further operators or to view the ExampleSet in the Results Workspace.

Parameters

  • attribute_nameThis parameter specifies the attribute of the input ExampleSet that should be converted from date to numerical form. Range: string
  • time_unitThis parameter specifies the unit in which the time is measured. In other words, this parameter specifies the component of the date that should be extracted. The following components can be extracted: millisecond, second, minute, hour, day, week, month, quarter, half year, and year. Range: selection
  • millisecond_relative_toThis parameter is only available when the time unit parameter is set to 'millisecond'. This parameter specifies the component relative to which the milliseconds should be extracted. The following options are available: second, epoch. Range: selection
  • second_relative_toThis parameter is only available when the time unit parameter is set to 'second'. This parameter specifies the component relative to which the seconds should be extracted. The following options are available: minute, hour, day, epoch. Range: selection
  • minute_relative_toThis parameter is only available when the time unit parameter is set to 'minute'. This parameter specifies the component relative to which the minutes should be extracted. The following options are available: hour, day, epoch. Range: selection
  • hour_relative_toThis parameter is only available when the time unit parameter is set to 'hour'. This parameter specifies the component relative to which the hours should be extracted. The following options are available: day, epoch. Range: selection
  • day_relative_toThis parameter is only available when the time unit parameter is set to 'day'. This parameter specifies the component relative to which the days should be extracted. The following options are available: week, month, year, epoch. Range: selection
  • week_relative_to This parameter is only available when the time unit parameter is set to 'week'. This parameter specifies the component relative to which the weeks should be extracted. The following options are available: month, year, epoch. Range: selection
  • month_relative_toThis parameter is only available when the time unit parameter is set to 'month'. This parameter specifies the component relative to which the months should be extracted. The following options are available: quarter, year, epoch. Range: selection
  • quarter_relative_toThis parameter is only available when the time unit parameter is set to 'quarter'. This parameter specifies the component relative to which the quarters should be extracted. The following options are available: year, epoch. Range: selection
  • half_year_relative_toThis parameter is only available when the time unit parameter is set to 'half year'. This parameter specifies the component relative to which the half years should be extracted. The following options are available: year, epoch. Range: selection
  • year_relative_toThis parameter is only available when the time unit parameter is set to 'year'. This parameter specifies the component relative to which the years should be extracted. The following options are available: epoch, era. Range: selection
  • keep_old_attributeThis is an expert parameter. This parameter indicates if the original date attribute of the input ExampleSet should be kept. This parameter is set to false by default thus the original date attribute is removed from the input ExampleSet. Range: selection

Tutorial Processes

Introduction to the Date to Numerical operator

The Create ExampleSet operator is used in this Example Process to create a date type attribute. The attribute is named 'Date' and it is defined by the expression 'date_parse("04/21/2012")'. Thus, an attribute named 'Date' is created with just a single example. The value of the date is 21/April/2012. Please note that no information about time is given. The Date to Numerical operator is applied on this ExampleSet. The 'Date' attribute is selected in the attribute name parameter.

If the time unit parameter is set to 'year' and the year relative to parameter is set to 'era' then the result is 2012. This is so because this is the 2012th year relative to the era. If the time unit parameter is set to 'year' and the year relative to parameter is set to 'epoch' then the result is 42. This is so because the year of epoch date is 1970 and difference between 2012 and 1970 is 42. If the time unit parameter is set to 'half year' and the half year relative to parameter is set to 'year' then the result is 1. This is so because April is in the first half of the year. If the time unit parameter is set to 'quarter' and the quarter relative to parameter is set to 'year' then the result is 2. This is so because April is the 4th month of the year and it comes in the second quarter of the year. If the time unit parameter is set to 'month' and the month relative to parameter is set to 'year' then the result is 4. This is so because April is the fourth month of the year. If the time unit parameter is set to 'month' and the month relative to parameter is set to 'quarter' then the result is 1. This is so because April is the first month of the second quarter of the year. If the time unit parameter is set to 'week' and the week relative to parameter is set to 'year' then the result is 16. This is so because 21st April comes in the 16th week of the year. If the time unit parameter is set to 'week' and the week relative to parameter is set to 'month' then the result is 3. This is so because 21st day of month comes in the 3rd week of the month. If the time unit parameter is set to 'day' and the day relative to parameter is set to 'year' then the result is 112. This is so because 21st April is the 112th day of the year. If the time unit parameter is set to 'day' and the day relative to parameter is set to 'month' then the result is 21. This is so because 21st April is the 21st day of the month. If the time unit parameter is set to 'day' and the day relative to parameter is set to 'week' then the result is 7. This is so because 21st April 2012 is on Saturday. Saturday is the seventh day of the week. Sunday is the first day of the week. If the time unit parameter is set to 'hour' and the hour relative to parameter is set to 'day' then the result is 0. This is so because no time information was provided for this date attribute and all time information was assumed to be 00 by default.