Changing date from Str9 to Float

[Courtney Gomillia]

I am currently trying to change the format of a date variable from a str9 to a float and I am getting a type mismatch error. I was able to successfully change my first variable that was not a str9. Can anyone help me with this? STATA also says, "string %fmt required for string variables", but it will not let me destring this variable.

The dates are currently reading like "30-Oct-12" and I need them to read "30oct2012"

. gen endA = dofc(Date_A)

type mismatch

r(109);

Thanks!

[Nick Cox]

help datetime is essential reading here,

destring is useless for string date variables unless exceptionally you have a year such as 2012 given as a string. At most destring could convert your example to 3012, which has less information in it.

dofc() is for changing a numeric date-time variable (not what you have at all) to a numeric daily date variable.

I think you need something like

gen wanted = daily(DateA, "DMY", 2025)
format wanted %td

We can't see your "first variable" or what you did with it, but I can't be confident that what you did -- while evidently legal -- was correct, so you should show both example data for that variable and what you did,