-tostring- is objecting because -real("28feb2008")- does not yield
17590.
That objection is irrelevant for your purposes, so you should just add
the -force- option.
Do please notice that I didn't recommend using -tostring-; I recommended
using -string()- directly.
I don't follow your argument about HTML but I will not comment further
on that. It is really is impossible to discuss what you are doing when
the description of your code is merely "it".
Nick
[email protected]
Ashim Kapoor
hi Nick,
Thank you for your email.
I need it to be a string because I want it to be output to HTML. If
the orginal variables is 17590 and display something like " Sep 6
1990" it is useless as when i try writing that variable to an HTML
code it will write 17590 and not Sep 6 1990 which is what I want.
gen k=17590
. format %td k
. l
+-----------+
| k |
|-----------|
1. | 28feb2008 |
2. | 28feb2008 |
3. | 28feb2008 |
4. | 28feb2008 |
5. | 28feb2008 |
+-----------+
. tostring(k) ,format(%td) gen(j)
k cannot be converted reversibly; no generate
This fails. Am I doing something wrong?
Thank you,
Ashim.
On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 9:17 PM, Nick Cox <[email protected]> wrote:
> Using -tostring- would be convenient for several variables, and it
> certainly supports a -format()- option. (I am not clear why Jeph
appears
> uncertain on that.)
>
> But a lower-level route appears closer to what Ashim wants. That uses
> the two-argument flavour of -string(,)-.
>
> To detect what format a variable has you go
>
> local fmt: format mynumvar
> gen svar = string(mynumvar, "`fmt'")
>
> Thus no magic is needed, just willingness to read the documentation.
>
> I don't understand why a string variable is needed here. Once a date
has
> been displayed in SMCL whether it came from a numeric variable or a
> string variable is immaterial, but that is a separate issue.
>
> Nick
> [email protected]
>
> Jeph Herrin
>
> I think -tostring- will work with the -format()- option.
> Or, if you want to call mata you can use -sprintf()-.
>
>
> Ashim Kapoor wrote:
>
>> This is great. Will do part of what I what . I still need the magic
>> command to do magic on dates.
>
>> On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 5:21 PM, Neil Shephard <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>>> Not sure about dates, but for your second example you can do the
> following....
>>>
>>> gen str magicj = string(round(j, .01))
>>>
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