from string to numeric

[Lucia Pierini]

Hi all,

I want to destring this variable but
destring Announcmentt_1, replace
encode Announcmentt_1, gen(newAnn)
don't work.

Any other idea?

Thank you

* Example generated by -dataex-. To install: ssc install dataex
clear
input str10 Announcmentt_1
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
"17feb2016"
end

[Carlo Lazzaro]

Lucia:
something along the following lines might be what you're looking for:

. clear

. input str10 Announcmentt_1

     Announcm~1
  1.
. "17feb2016"
  2.
. "17feb2016"
  3.
. "17feb2016"
  4.
. "17feb2016"
  5.
. "17feb2016"
  6.
. "17feb2016"
  7.
. "17feb2016"
  8.
. "17feb2016"
  9.
. "17feb2016"
 10.
. "17feb2016"
 11.
. "17feb2016"
 12.
. "17feb2016"
 13.
. "17feb2016"
 14.
. "17feb2016"
 15.
. "17feb2016"
 16.
. "17feb2016"
 17.
. "17feb2016"
 18.
. "17feb2016"
 19.
. "17feb2016"
 20.
. "17feb2016"
 21.
. "17feb2016"
 22.
. "17feb2016"
 23.
. "17feb2016"
 24.
. "17feb2016"
 25.
. "17feb2016"
 26.
. "17feb2016"
 27.
. "17feb2016"
 28.
. "17feb2016"
 29.
. "17feb2016"
 30.
. "17feb2016"
 31.
. "17feb2016"
 32.
. "17feb2016"
 33.
. "17feb2016"
 34.
. "17feb2016"
 35.
. "17feb2016"
 36.
. "17feb2016"
 37.
. "17feb2016"
 38.
. "17feb2016"
 39.
. "17feb2016"
 40.
. "17feb2016"
 41.
. "17feb2016"
 42.
. "17feb2016"
 43.
. "17feb2016"
 44.
. "17feb2016"
 45.
. "17feb2016"
 46.
. "17feb2016"
 47.
. "17feb2016"
 48.
. "17feb2016"
 49.
. "17feb2016"
 50.
. "17feb2016"
 51.
. "17feb2016"
 52.
. "17feb2016"
 53.
. "17feb2016"
 54.
. "17feb2016"
 55.
. "17feb2016"
 56.
. "17feb2016"
 57.
. "17feb2016"
 58.
. "17feb2016"
 59.
. "17feb2016"
 60.
. "17feb2016"
 61.
. "17feb2016"
 62.
. "17feb2016"
 63.
. "17feb2016"
 64.
. "17feb2016"
 65.
. "17feb2016"
 66.
. "17feb2016"
 67.
. "17feb2016"
 68.
. "17feb2016"
 69.
. "17feb2016"
 70.
. "17feb2016"
 71.
. "17feb2016"
 72.
. "17feb2016"
 73.
. "17feb2016"
 74.
. "17feb2016"
 75.
. "17feb2016"
 76.
. "17feb2016"
 77.
. "17feb2016"
 78.
. "17feb2016"
 79.
. "17feb2016"
 80.
. "17feb2016"
 81.
. "17feb2016"
 82.
. "17feb2016"
 83.
. "17feb2016"
 84.
. "17feb2016"
 85.
. "17feb2016"
 86.
. "17feb2016"
 87.
. "17feb2016"
 88.
. "17feb2016"
 89.
. "17feb2016"
 90.
. "17feb2016"
 91.
. "17feb2016"
 92.
. "17feb2016"
 93.
. "17feb2016"
 94.
. "17feb2016"
 95.
. "17feb2016"
 96.
. "17feb2016"
 97.
. "17feb2016"
 98.
. "17feb2016"
 99.
. "17feb2016"
100.
. "17feb2016"
101.
. end

. gen eventdate = date( Announcmentt_1 , "DMY")

. format eventdate %td

. list eventdate in 1/3

     +-----------+
     | eventdate |
     |-----------|
  1. | 17feb2016 |
  2. | 17feb2016 |
  3. | 17feb2016 |
     +-----------+

.

[William Lisowski]

To Carlo's solution, let me add the following advice. Before working with dates and times, any Stata user should thoroughly review the very detailed Chapter 24 (Working with dates and times) of the Stata User's Guide PDF. After that, the help datetime documentation will usually be enough to point the way. All Stata manuals are included as PDFs in the Stata installation (since version 11) and are accessible from within Stata - for example, through the PDF Documentation section of Stata's Help menu. Some people may be able to remember everything without have to continually refer to the documentation, but I for one am not such a person.

[Lucia Pierini]

Thank you to both of you for your precious help!