Converting dates

[Yedidya Saiman]

I know there is a ton of discussion on this but having difficulty....

want to use doc to remove his from my time stamp
Current format of my date are: 06mar2014 14:43:15 and they are stored as str25
when try to use dofc
gen flag=dofc(date_var) I receive "type mismatch"

thanks!

[Joseph Coveney]

I assume that you meant hms. Check to see whether this is close to what you're seeking.

.ÿ
.ÿversionÿ16.1

.ÿ
.ÿclearÿ*

.ÿ
.ÿquietlyÿsetÿobsÿ1

.ÿgenerateÿstrÿdate_varÿ=ÿ"06mar2014ÿ14:43:15"

.ÿ
.ÿgenerateÿintÿflag_dtÿ=ÿdate(substr(date_var,ÿ1,ÿ9),ÿ"DMY")

.ÿformatÿ*_dtÿ%tdCY-N-D

.ÿ
.ÿlist,ÿnoobs

ÿÿ+---------------------------------+
ÿÿ|ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿÿdate_varÿÿÿÿÿÿflag_dtÿ|
ÿÿ|---------------------------------|
ÿÿ|ÿ06mar2014ÿ14:43:15ÿÿÿ2014-03-06ÿ|
ÿÿ+---------------------------------+

.ÿ
.ÿexit

endÿofÿdo-file


.ÿ


flag is kind of a strange name for a date.

[Nick Cox]

What's wrong with #1 is that dofc() is for numeric date-time variables. This would work: dofc(clock())

.  di %td dofc(clock("06mar2014 14:43:15", "DMY hms"))
06mar2014

but Joseph Coveney's method of ignoring what you don't care about is better. Note also

.  di %td daily(word("06mar2014 14:43:15", 1), "DMY")
06mar2014

[Yedidya Saiman]

Thanks so much! Worked perfectly