Re: st: converting dates from Excel .csv file

[Michael McCulloch <mm@pinest.org>]

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On 8/23 I submitted a question: > I have dates in an Excel *.csv file as:
>         date
>         12/12/08
>         12/02/08
>         04/14/08
>         04/04/08
>
>  I wrote the following code to convert to Stata date:
>         gen str date_year = substr(date, -2,.)
>         gen str date_month = substr(date, 1, 2)
>         gen str date_day = substr(date, 4, 2)
>         destring  date_year date_month date_day, replace
>         list date date_month date_day date_year
>
>  However, when I import the *.csv file, the leading zeroes are dropped
>  from months 1-9.
>  Is there a way to solve this in Stata, without having to create
>  separate columns for m, d, and y in Excel?
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On 8/24 Salah responded with the following advice, which 
unfortunately is not successful (error msg: 60 missing values 
generated). I note that Salah's code which he wrote in Stata 10.1 
worked for him, but not for me; I'm using 9.2.  Any advice?



Have you tried the date function?

input str12 date
       "12/12/08"
       "12/02/08"
       "4/14/08"
       "4/04/08"
end
gen d=date(date, "MDY", 2010)
format d %d
list

Tested using Stata 10.1

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