Convert YYYY-MM-DD to YYYYMM

[Kerri Agnew]

I want to create a yearmonth variable from my date variable (YYYY-MM-DD)
i.e convert "2005-04-03" to "200504"
The commands I am using keep throwing up missing values or mismatch errors.
Anyone know how to do this on Stata?

[Nick Cox]

Please provide data examples using dataex (SSC) and show what code you tried to get explanations of what you are doing wrong (FAQ Advice #12).

. clear

. set obs 1
number of observations (_N) was 0, now 1

. gen ddate = daily("2005-04-03", "YMD")

. gen mdate = mofd(ddate)

. format mdate %tmCYN

. l

     +----------------+
     | ddate    mdate |
     |----------------|
  1. | 16529   200504 |
     +----------------+

mofd() is documented under help dates: see SIF-to-SIF conversion.