st: RE: AW: Categorising dates

[Nick Cox <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk>]

As the putative author of -tostring-, I must protest mildly at this use of -tostring-, on two quite different grounds. 

1. Style and efficiency
=======================

If you are working with a numeric variable, are inclined to allow force, and wish only to generate a single string variable, you can and should get there directly with e.g. 

gen mydays = string(mydates, "%tdMonth") 

which replaces a call to an .ado which is dozens of lines long with a single line of code with exactly the same effect. 

-tostring- is a convenience command which is, literally, convenient when (a) you have two or more variables and/or (b) a desire to be prudent because you are worried about loss of information in conversion. If neither applies, calling up -tostring- is unnecessary. 

2. Respecting the problem
=========================

For problems like Sara's the user is almost always better off with numeric date variables assigned appropriate date formats. 

Nick 
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk 

Martin Weiss

clear*

//generate data
set obs 50
gen mydates=date("23 Sep 09", "DM20Y")+_n-26
format mydates %tdMon_dd,_CCYY

//Get day of week
tostring mydates, gen(mydays) format(%td_Dayname) force

//Get month
tostring mydates, gen(mymonth) format(%tdMonth) force


//see result
l, noo
*************

sara khan

I have a list of daily dates inthe format, for example, 23 Sep 09, and
need to create two variables. One is to categorise the days into
weekly data (so week commencing on a Monday). The second is to create
a variable cataegorsing the daily data into monthly data.

I would be grateful for advice on how to do this.

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