Generate a sequence of the last day of the month over two years

Solution 1:

Yes, you found the correct trick: going back a day from the first of the next month.

Here is as a one-liner in base R:

R> seq(as.Date("2010-02-01"), length=24, by="1 month") - 1
 [1] "2010-01-31" "2010-02-28" "2010-03-31" "2010-04-30" "2010-05-31"
 [6] "2010-06-30" "2010-07-31" "2010-08-31" "2010-09-30" "2010-10-31"
[11] "2010-11-30" "2010-12-31" "2011-01-31" "2011-02-28" "2011-03-31"
[16] "2011-04-30" "2011-05-31" "2011-06-30" "2011-07-31" "2011-08-31"
[21] "2011-09-30" "2011-10-31" "2011-11-30" "2011-12-31"
R> 

So no need for lubridate which (while being a fine package) isn't needed for simple task like this. Plus, its overloading of existing base functions still strikes me as somewhat dangerous...

Solution 2:

It is amazing how typing out a question focuses creative energy. I think I worked out the answer. I may as well post it here for the next poor soul who finds themselves wasting time.

ymd("2010-02-01")+ months(0:23)-days(1)

Simply specify the first day of the next month and generate a sequence from that but subtract 1 days from it to get the last day of the preceding month.

[1] "2010-01-31 UTC" "2010-02-28 UTC" "2010-03-31 UTC" "2010-04-30 UTC" "2010-05-31 UTC" "2010-06-30 UTC" "2010-07-31 UTC" "2010-08-31 UTC" "2010-09-30 UTC"
[10] "2010-10-31 UTC" "2010-11-30 UTC" "2010-12-31 UTC" "2011-01-31 UTC" "2011-02-28 UTC" "2011-03-31 UTC" "2011-04-30 UTC" "2011-05-31 UTC" "2011-06-30 UTC"
[19] "2011-07-31 UTC" "2011-08-31 UTC" "2011-09-30 UTC" "2011-10-31 UTC" "2011-11-30 UTC" "2011-12-31 UTC"

By the way, how do I get rid of the pesky "UTC" designations. Time zones are a life saver when they are needed. The rest of the time they are a nuisance.