st: RE: Question on converting time-variable

["Barclay Matthew (PUBLIC HEALTH ENGLAND)" <matthewbarclay@nhs.net>]

Hi Simon,

One approach would be:

// string containing first half of start variable
gen pre_start = substr(start,1,11)

// string containing second half...
gen post_start = substr(start,-4,.)

// replace "2400" with "0000"
replace post_start = "0000" if post_start == "2400"

// recombine pre_ and post_start
egen new_start = concat(pre_start post_start)

// generate starttime etc

HTH,
Matt

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu [mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Simon Falck
Sent: 01 October 2013 09:55
To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
Subject: st: Question on converting time-variable

Dear Statalist,

Working with Stata 11.2, I want to convert two string variables (start,
stop) with time information showing year-month-day-hour-minutes, e.g.
"1998 10 19 1000" to time-format so "01oct1998 10:00:00", which can
easily done by,

gen double starttime=clock(start, "YMDhm")
format starttime %tc

However, it appears that my timevariables (strings), i.e. the strings,
sometimes indicate midnight as 2400, e.g. "2004 12 13 2400" and sometime
as 0000, e.g. "1999 10 26 0000", and Stata seems only to accept the
latter, implying that observations that indicate midnight as "2400" are
not converted.

My question how to convert observations that indicate midnight as 2400
to 0000 in the string variable(s), or to time variable(s)?

Thanks in advance,
Simon

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