converting modate format string to numeric

[Upananda Pani]

Dear All,

I have the data which is in the following format. The modate is in string format. The data looks like follows:

The dates are arranged as per the individual id. How to convert it to the numeric so that i can declare my data set into panel data?

Looking forward to your suggestions

With sincere regards,
Upananda Pani

[Joro Kolev]

Check out the -monthly()- function, which in my experience is a bit lame compared to the -date()- function. Then check out the user contributed command -numdate- which works better with monthly dates.

If you do not figure it out, post a sample of your data using -dataex-.

[Nick Cox]

monthly() can indeed fail where one might expect the problem is easy, but it will work fine here.

. di monthly("2004m1", "YM")
528

. di monthly("200401", "YM")
.

The real problem here is likely to be trying to work with date variables without reading

help datetime

first.