st: Date format from string

[Philipp Hagspiel <philipp.hagspiel@gmx.net>]

Hi,

I have imported and reshaped an excel file with dates as variables 
(observations after reshaping). They are now in the string format 
ddmmyyyy. They used to be in the format dd.mm.yyy in excel but I put a 
stub in front of every date, so Iguess that is why it didn't keep the 
date format.

When I know want to use the date function now, it tells me that there is 
a mismatch.

. gen eventdate = date(mydatevariable, "DMY")
    type mismatch
    r(109);

I have noticed that all dates that start with a "0" on the dd are 
converted into a d format.
So: 01.01.2001 --> 1012011, 20.01.2011 --> 20012011

Thus, I know have two formats: ddmmyyyy and dmmyyyy (whenever the day is 
between 01-09 it is now 1-9).

How can I fix this?

Thank you so much in advance!
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