Query Editor R Script errors

[jkraush1]

I uploaded a .xlsx file into Power BI desktop and tried to run a simple R script on it in query editor as a test run.

Specifically the script I ran was:
# 'dataset' holds the input data for this script
dataset$Hour = format(dataset$Date, "%H")

Where Date is a column containing date-time information and dataset$Hour is an attempt to make a new column that just pulls the hour from dataset$Date. The comment the script editor comes with says that the open table is automatically named 'dataset', so I used the name dataset when referencing the sheet.

I tested this code directly in R and it worked fine, but when I tried to re-create my work in Power BI I got the following error:

DataSource.Error: ADO.NET: R script error.
Error in format.default(structure(as.character(x), names = names(x), dim = dim(x),  : 
  invalid 'trim' argument
Calls: format -> format.factor -> format -> format.default
Execution halted

Details:
    DataSourceKind=R
    DataSourcePath=R
    Message=R script error.

I am unsure how to procede here. What did I do wrong and what can I do to fix this going forward?

[BeardyGeorge]

given the errors you're getting, it's possible the data isn't formatted as you're expecting (or pbi is changing it somewhere along the way) - would you be able to give us some examples of the data you have?

Thanks,

George.

[jkraush1]

George,

It appears that power bi is changing how the data is formatted, from a datetime to a string. the as.POSIX code provided for me thankfully did not return an error

[v-yulgu-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @jkraush1,

I got the same error when using above script. In my test, the Date column is set to DateTime, formatted as "1/1/2017 5:20:20AM".

Please try below code.

Hour=format(as.POSIXct(dataset$Date, format="%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"), format="%H")

Regards,
Yuliana Gu

[jkraush1]

Hello @v-yulgu-msft,

I used that code and thankfully it does not return the same error as before. However, it seems to result in PowerBI outputting an empty table. In fact, I have tried a few other lines of code in R script and the result seems to always be a blank table with only empty columns for 'name' and 'value'. Any idea why this is happening?

[jkraush1]

For clarification that line was all the code I had written in the script.