Dear all,
I have got a variable containing the month and year an individual started his or her education. Only Stata thinks the values in this variable are numbers and I want to turn them into dates.
If all the numbers followed the same pattern that will not be a problem.
for example I could do it like this:
tostring edu_start_date_1, gen(stredu1st)
gen edu1st = date(stredu1st, "YM")
My problem is that while most dates in my dataset come in the yyyymm pattern:
e.g.
+----------+
| stredu~t |
|----------|
1. | . |
2. | 197104 |
3. | 197504 |
4. | 196504 |
5. | 196904 |
|----------|
several contain only yymm
e.g.
+-----------+
| edu_st~1 |
|-----------|
12338. | 8804 |
13265. | 8404 |
13666. | 6304 |
13831. | 8304 |
+-----------+
So when I run
gen edu1st = date(stredu1st, "YM")
all the yymm values in stredu1st are turned into missing values in edu1st.
I could of course edit the values containing only yymm into yyyymm pattern manually, but this feels imprecise and prone to error and I would like to automate the process if at all possible.
Is there a way to make the date command recognise alternating patterns?
I would be very grateful for any advice,
Sincerely yours,
Ekaterina
--
Ekaterina Hertog (nee Korobtseva)
Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies
27 Winchester Road, Oxford
OX2 6NA
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