Re: st: How to replace a missing date with value?

[Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com>]

Let me add how I approach questions like this. Let me also confess
that I didn't see problem 1 immediately. Problem 2 was more evident.

I always want to get quickly to specific examples with problems like
this to test my understanding, so -display- is my friend

. di date("29-02-2001","DMY")

and it returns missing. So why? The date looks well-formed with no
ambiguity about century, which often bites with -date()-. Wait, it's
29th February and ...

Also, just staring at the code is often not active enough. Often you
have to be more active: check examples, check what should be true,
etc.

Nick

On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 5:01 PM, Nick Cox <njcoxstata@gmail.com> wrote:
> There are two problems with your code.
>
> 1. Your first -replace- asks for a replacement of the date with the
> -date()- equivalent of 29 February 2001. But 2001 was not a leap year,
> so there was no 29 February that year, so Stata returns missing, and
> nothing is changed.
>
> 2. Your second -replace- has exactly the same problem, plus the fact
> that what you have supplied is not a DMY argument, but a MDY argument.
>
> So, it seems likely that whatever leads you to apply 29 February is
> wrong in this case.
>
> Nick
>
> On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 4:53 PM, Kanter, Rebecca <rkanter@jhsph.edu> wrote:
>
>> I am trying to replace date value that was missing (.) with the actual value that I now have.
>>
>> Given that date1 is a date (DMY) variable in %dM_d,_CY format..
>>
>> I do not understand why the below code does not result in the requested change to change date1==. (MISSING) to date1=29feb2001
>>
>> replace date1 = date("29-02-2001","DMY") in 23 (via edit)
>> (0 real changes made)
>>
>>  replace date1 = date("02-29-2001","DMY") if  id=="12345" (via command screen)
>> (0 real changes made)
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