st: how to change specific string variable into date variable?

[gjhxmu@sina.com]

Dear statalists,

Something wrong happened when changing the string variable into date variable.

 clear
input country:mylabel /* 
 */ str10 date, auto 
Argentina   "199001"
Argentina   "199001"
Argentina   "199001"
Argentina   "199002"
Argentina   "199003"
Argentina   "199004"
Argentina   "199004"
Argentina   "199004"
Argentina   "199004"
Argentina   "199101"
Argentina   "199101"
Argentina   "200803"
Argentina   "200804"
Argentina   "200804"
Brazil      "199001"
Brazil      "199002"
Brazil      "199002"
Brazil      "199003"
Brazil      "199003"
Brazil      "199003"
Brazil      "199003"
end
g date2=monthly(date,"YM")

The result showed "21 missing values generated"

Anything wrong? How to correct it ?

Thank you for any help!

Best regards,
Rose.


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