st: Re: converting dates from Excel .csv file

[Kit Baum <baum@bc.edu>]

< >

This advice is not stable across platforms on which Excel runs. Not  
all versions of Excel have the base date 1 January 1900.

I recommend ensuring that in Excel you have four-digit years in the  
display format of any date field. Then a .csv file containing such  
date fields is easily read, and those fields converted to Stata dates.


Kit Baum, Boston College Economics and DIW Berlin
http://ideas.repec.org/e/pba1.html
An Introduction to Modern Econometrics Using Stata:
http://www.stata-press.com/books/imeus.html


On Aug 29, 2008, at 02:33 , John wrote:


> Another trick with Excel dates (assuming you have the software) is to
> open the sheet in Excel and apply a general or numeric format to the
> date column.  This will show you that (at least for dates subsequent  
> to
> 1/1/1900) Excel uses elapsed days as well*.  All you need to do is
> subtract Stata's Day 0 in Excel's number line, 21916 (1/1/1960) from  
> the
> Excel elapsed day and you'll get a number that, once imported into
> Stata, can be formatted to show the correct date.
>
> E.G.: Date = Aug 28th, 1963
>
> Excel numeric equivalent: 23251 - 21916 = Stata's elapsed day 1335
>
>  . di  %dM_d,_CY 1335
>  August 28, 1963
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