Yesterday using c(current_date)

[Masood Sadat]

I thought it is fairly simple but I am not able to produce yesterday's date automatically. I want to save yesterday's date in a local macro using c(current_date), such as the following which does not work:

local yesterday = c(current_date)-1
di "`yesterday'"

[Joseph Coveney]

It's because c(current_date) is a string.

local yesterday : display %tdCY-N-D date("`c(current_date)'", "DMY") - 1
display "`yesterday'"

[Nick Cox]

c(current_date) is a string, as creturn list affirms. So, to do arithmetic on it, even subtracting 1, you could push it through daily() or date() first, just like any other string containing a daily date, where help datetime explains.

You don't say exactly what you to see or to store but you have choices ranging between a numeric date (origin 1 January 1960) and a string using any daily date display format of your choice.

You know to assign to a local macro.

. cret li

System values

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        c(current_date) = "20 Sep 2018"

[output deleted] 

. di daily("`c(current_date)'", "DMY") - 1
21446

. di %td daily("`c(current_date)'", "DMY") - 1
19sep2018