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I thought about this solution, but failed to find the reference Nick
cites... Would it not make more sense to leave the second -substr()- free to
take a month consisting of one digit or two by replacing "2" with a dot?
HTH
Martin
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Nick Cox
Sent: Mittwoch, 12. August 2009 22:25
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: st: how to change specific string variable into date variable?
Martin Weiss suggested a solution which worked fine. Rose's problem was
left unexplained, however, yet the explanation is given directly in the
help for -dates_and_times-.
For functions like -monthly()-,
"The pair of numbers to be translated must be separated by space or
punctuation. No extra characters are allowed."
As Rose's dates are run together, this condition is not satisfied.
g date2=monthly(substr(date, 1, 4) + " " + substr(date, 5, 2),"YM")
would have been a direct solution. Where someone has seen fit to put
year and month together, we insert a space between them.
Nick
[email protected]
Rose <[email protected]>
Something wrong happened when changing the string variable into date
variable.
clear
input country:mylabel /*
*/ str10 date, auto
Argentina "199001"
Argentina "199001"
Argentina "199001"
Argentina "199002"
Argentina "199003"
Argentina "199004"
Argentina "199004"
Argentina "199004"
Argentina "199004"
Argentina "199101"
Argentina "199101"
Argentina "200803"
Argentina "200804"
Argentina "200804"
Brazil "199001"
Brazil "199002"
Brazil "199002"
Brazil "199003"
Brazil "199003"
Brazil "199003"
Brazil "199003"
end
g date2=monthly(date,"YM")
The result showed "21 missing values generated"
Anything wrong? How to correct it ?
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