Hugh wrote:
I have 3 variables; id, date, time.
"date" and "time" both have a storage type of str8 and are both in %9s
display format. I need to sort on "id", "date" and "time" in that
sequence.
I am able to get "date" as float %td, but I am having a problem with
"time". I got "time" as a double %tc, but it obviously comes out with
the date "01jan1960" plus the time. I have over 2 million
observations. I am using Stata 10.
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To make the date and time sortable, combine the two strings into
one, and next transform the string into a numeric date-and time
(tc) variable. (It has the numeric value of the number of
milliseconds (!) since 1 January 1960):
. clear
. set obs 1
. gen str sdate = "12112008"
. gen str stime = "19:10:00"
. gen sdatetime = sdate + " " + stime
. gen datetime = clock(sdatetime,"DMY hms")
. format datetime %tc
. list, clean
sdate stime sdatetime datetime
1. 12112008 19:10:00 12112008 19:10:00 12nov2008 19:08:55
Hope this helps
Svend
________________________________________________________
Svend Juul
Institut for Folkesundhed, Afdeling for Epidemiologi
(Institute of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology)
Vennelyst Boulevard 6
DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
Phone, work: +45 8942 6090
Phone, home: +45 8693 7796
Fax: +45 8613 1580
E-mail: [email protected]
_________________________________________________________
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