String to date variable with time when string does not follow the format DMY ## or DMYhms

[Elisa Droll]

Hi all,

I have a large set of string variables (too large to encode) that contain dates and specific times in the following manner:
09SEP19:09:00:00
I would like to convert it to dates using either
gen new_date_var = date(string_var, "DMY###")
gen new_date_var = clock(string_var, "DMY#hms")

However none of these work apparently because of the : between the Year and the Time (---19:09---) and therefore the new_date_var generates only missing values.
I also tried to use multiple # to account for the additional : but it is not working.

I would highly appreciate any help =)

Thank you for your time!

[Clyde Schechter]

clear
set obs 1
gen string_var = "09SEP19:09:00:00"
gen double new_var = clock(string_var, "DM20Yhms")
format new_var %tc

works for me, on the assumption that your intended year is 2019, not 1919 or in some other century.

Important: when creating clock variables it is crucial to create the variable as a double. Otherwise your times will be inaccurate because the default float data storage type is not large enough to hold all the necessary digits.

[Elisa Droll]

Dear Clyde,

thank you so much it worked! I was missing the double then =)
Have a nice day!

[Nick Cox]

You were missing the century too.