Re: st: Date format from string

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

thank you very much for your response! I have found the problem. When I 
imported the data, I accidently -destring-ed and replaced the date 
variable so that I got numeric values. I imported it again and now it works!

Thanks!
Am 11.03.2014 11:19, schrieb Nick Cox:
> The error is "type mismatch". That means that Stata expects numeric
> but sees string, or vice versa. In this case Stata expects string.
>
> So, the details of what's inside the date are as yet quite secondary.
>
> Compare the following examples:
>
> . di date(20012011, "DMY")
> type mismatch
> r(109);
>
> . di date("20012011", "DMY")
> 18647
>
> . di date(string(20012011), "DMY")
> .
>
> . di date(string(20012011, "%12.0f"), "DMY")
> 18647
>
> In your case, try
>
>   gen eventdate = date(string(mydatevariable, "%12.0f"), "DMY")
>
> The third example above shows the default format of -string()- does
> not help here. Why is that?
>
> . di string(20012011)
> 2.00e+07
>
> -date()- can't make sense of that as a daily date.
>
> The word "format" is slippery here. None of your "formats" is in fact
> a Stata format, although your meanings were all clear.
>
> Nick
> njcoxstata@gmail.com
>
>
> On 11 March 2014 10:07, Philipp Hagspiel <philipp.hagspiel@gmx.net> wrote:
>
> > 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 I guess 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?
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