Changing time format

[Hulya Kocyigit]

Hello,

I would like to change the format of a date variable, timestamp. Its current format is 20180201032049. I want to change it to YYYY MM DD HH MM SS. So I use the code

format timestamp %tcCCYYNNDDHHMMSS.

This code turns 20180201032049 into 25990626032352. Can anyone see what I am doing wrong?

Kind regards,
Hulya Kocyigit

[Hemanshu Kumar]

Its current format is 20180201032049

I think your problem is that this is not merely the display format in which your variable is stored, it is the actual number that it is stored as. One way might be to do this:

tostring timestamp, gen(t_str) format(%14.0f)
gen double t = clock(t_str, "YMDhms")
format %tcCCYY_NN_DD_HH_MM_SS t

Unlike the original variable timestamp, The variable t is a date that Stata understands and can work with using various date-time functions.

[Hulya Kocyigit]

Thank you very much. This answers my question perfect.

Kind regards,
Hülya