st: Strings that give missing values as SIF

[Paul <paul@iheta.com>]

I am using Stata ic 13.1 for mac 64 bit Intel

I imported into Stata  a csv file with 4083 patient responses recorded at an import_date. The recorded format of that date in Excel is  DD/MM/YY h:mm, and is shown as a  str13 variable

My attempt to get an SIF date as DD/MM/YY in stata followed the sequence below

1. I first stripped off the h:mm in import_date

gen Time=substr(import_time,1,8)

list Time in 1/10

*     +----------+

*  1. | 31/05/13 |

*  2. | 28/05/13 |

*  3. | 21/03/13 |

*  4. | 30/04/13 |

*  5. | 13/05/13 |

*     |----------|

*  6. | 28/05/13 |

*  7. | 17/04/13 |

*  8. | 30/04/13 |

*  9. | 16/05/13 |

* 10. | 30/04/13 |

*     +----------+

2. This new format seems OK  but Time is shown as a str9 variable with format %9s. I tried

gen ImportTime = date(Time, "DMY")

format ImportTime %td

The  result was 

*(4083 missing values generated)

3. Noting that some days were 1-9, I tried adding an extra 0 in front of the day in import_date using 

*replace import_time = "0" + import_time if length(import_time) == 7

4. To no avail as the 4083 missing values message was repeated when I recalculated ImportTime

I am missing something in my reading of stata dates and times or in importing excel csv to stata.Any ideas?