Based on a couple of assumptions here
1) I have about 6 clean formatted date columns imported from Excel that CartoDB converted into 5-digit strings. I cannot select 'date' in the column label.
2) Assumption two is that it's realistic and logical to change the dates so they're readable. (that is, convert them via SQL to eg YYDDMM).
I got help from HQ in the form of to convert the columns use:
SELECT to_date(date_column::text, 'MDDYY') AS fixed_date
Since I don't know any other way to run SQL commands against my db, I'm trying to use the SQL API. After trying everything I could and from Google I just don't see why the above query would be useful. That is, was it perhaps offered as a per-map command I should put on relevant layers? So my approach is to try to run from REST but, shouldn't that then be a POST or UPDATE? Here's my latest:
https://myusername.cartodb.com/api/v2/sql?q=SELECT FROM myTableName to_date(date_column::text, 'MDDYY') AS fixed_date&myApiKey
At the end of the day I just want to change many date columns to readable dates that people can filter from and that anyone can read.