Re: st: convert string variable to date

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

So, you need to remove "st" "rd" "th" from that variable, or to be
safer a copy of that variable.

clonevar admissiondate2 = admissiondate

foreach s in st rd th {
         replace admissiondate2 = subinstr(admissiondate2, "`s'", "", .)
}

Then use -date()-. If there are still missings you will need to look
at the dates that are still problematic:

l admissiondate2 if missing(date(admissiondate2, "DMY"))

For "STATA" read "Stata".

Nick

On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 11:18 AM, Neophytos Stylianou
<neophytos.stylianou@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have a problem with 2 of my variables which I want to convert form string to dates. One of the variable is "admissiondate" seen below:
>
>                                 ADMISSIONDATE
> type:   string (str13)
>
> unique values:  3287    missing "":     0/59047
>
> examples:       "16th Aug 2007"
>         "21st Feb 2007"
>         "27th Jan 2011"
>         "4th Apr 2007"
>
> warning:        variable has embedded   blanks
>
>
> My other variable is "dichordeathdate":
>
>                                         DISCHORDEATHDATE
> type:   string (str25)
>
> unique values:  3335    missing "":     0/59047
>
> examples:       "16th Apr 2011"
>         "21st Aug 2011"
>         "27th Feb 2004"
>         "3rd Sep 2009"
>
> warning:        variable has embedded   blanks
>
> How can I convert them to dates?
>
> I do not think the command """gen admdate2 = date(admissiondate, "DMY")""" works here since I do have the 4digit year but I have the rd,st,th after the day!
>
> Is there an easy way to covert the variable to date variable without having to rewrite the whole dates?
>
> I am working on STATA 12
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