st: RE: Efficient code to generate many date/time variables at once

["Radwin, David" <dradwin@rti.org>]

Alison,

This sounds like a job for a simple -foreach- loop. You might specify the true varlist with a wildcard (dr*) or as a range of contiguous variables (drape - shade).

foreach v of varlist drape curtain blind shade {
	gen dt_tm_`v'_str = string(dt_`v',"%td") + " " + tm_`v'
	gen double dt_tm_`v' = clock(dt_tm_`v'_str,"DMYhm")
	format dt_tm_`v' %tc
	}

(This code is untested.) You could combine the two -generate- lines to increase computational efficiency, but I don't think that is the kind of efficiency you seek, and doing so probably isn't worth the hassle. 

For further reading, see Kit Baum's Why should you become a Stata programmer? (http://fmwww.bc.edu/GStat/docs/StataProg.pdf) or An Introduction to Stata Programming (http://www.stata-press.com/books/introduction-stata-programming). 

David
--
David Radwin, Senior Research Associate
Education and Workforce Development
RTI International
2150 Shattuck Ave. Suite 800, Berkeley, CA 94704
Phone: 510-665-8274

www.rti.org/education


> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu [mailto:owner-
> statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Alison El Ayadi
> Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2014 4:13 PM
> To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> Subject: st: Efficient code to generate many date/time variables at once
> 
> Dear Statalisters -
> 
> I have to create a number of date/time variables using a %td formatted
> date and a string time, which I generally do using the following code,
> for each of the different time points -
> 
> gen dt_tm_drape_str = string(dt_drape,"%td") + " " + tm_drape
> gen double dt_tm_drape = clock(dt_tm_drape_str,"DMYhm")
> format dt_tm_drape %tc
> 
> I'd like to make my code more efficient by having it run through all
> of the variables that I have, which are paired as dt_X and tm_X.  Any
> suggestions on how to put together a program to do this?
> 
> Thanks,
> Alison

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