Formats when writing date/time/datetime

[jennybc]

It needs to be possible for the user to somehow influence this. Possibilities include attaching this info to columns of the to-be-written data, having some sort of a "write spec", or an argument in writing functions.

[mattle24]

Hi @jennybc! I and a few other people are interested in this functionality and Sheets Date and Number formats more broadly. Is this an issue that we could try working on a PR for?

[jennybc]

In my mind, this is part of a broader notional project about column specification, both for reading and writing (and probably across packages, e.g. readxl, readr).

Re: date and number formats, I think all of that needs to be handled a bit like I'm currently handling formulas:

https://googlesheets4.tidyverse.org/reference/gs4_formula.html

I think we need a set of S3 classes in order to address these different types of cells/columns and then they carry their format as an attribute.

Just so you know, I don't think an external PR is likely to be merged, because whatever happens needs to fit nicely into a broader tidyverse/vctrs context. But, with that caveat, you are still welcome to do some sort of pilot study that meets your immediate needs. Such experiments certainly can lead to interesting insights that help to flesh out the design specs for the more permanent solution.

[mattle24]

That makes a ton of sense, thanks for explaining your thinking! I think we'll fork the repo and try out some things to fit our needs -- and hopefully some of that can be helpful to you down the road.