Re: st: RE: Column types for ODBC

[Michael Ewens <m@betanaught.com>]

The goal is to keep the Stata internal data type as a date (which is 
just a numeric), but send it to the odbc command as date-readable by 
mysql/Access/etc.  If Stata could send the 'odbc insert' the formatted date
"1Jan2000"

rather than its numeric counterpart, it would be a lot easier to work 
with Stata-exported odbc dates.   As is, it appears that databases 
created with Stata's odbc inserts were not built for use outside of 
Stata (my example is Stata creates a MySQL database and R loads it). 
That of course is not a bug or defect, just an important caveat when 
working with 'odbc.'
Michael

Martin Weiss wrote:
> <>
>
> " Is there a way to force the create option to use
> particularl column types?"
>
>
> In Stata parlance, these are data types. The whole array can be seen in
> -help data_types-. -generate- accepts them as "arguments", as in -gen str10
> myvar="hello"- for a string of maximum length 10.
>
>
> HTH
> Martin
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> [mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Michael Ewens
> Sent: Freitag, 21. Mai 2010 19:50
> To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> Subject: st: Column types for ODBC
>
> Dear all:
>
> I am inserting columns of Stata-formatted dates into an ODBC database
> (MySQL).  If one runs
>
> --
> gen date = mdy(month,year,date)
> format date %td
> odbc insert, dsn(datasource) t(test) u(u) create sqlshow
> --
>
> Stata creates a 'float' column in the new table.  If one wants to
> subsequently use this new table outside of Stata, the date information
> is effectively lost.  Is there a way to force the create option to use
> particularl column types?
>
> My current workaround first converts the 'date' variable to a string
> 'YYYYMMDD.'  The next step could be to run something like
>
> --
> odbc exec("ALTER TABLE test MODIFY date DATE"), dsn(datasource) u(u)
> --
>
> Unfortunately, this approach requires a line of code for all the date
> variables in the data.  Is there a better approach to dealing with dates
> and odbc?  Ideally, the 'datestring' option available for 'odbc load'
> would be available for 'odbc insert'.
>
> Best,
> Michael
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