Quaterly date in Stata Reader Form (SRF)

[Nigel Taylor]

Hi,

I have tried all possible suggestions I have seen and nothing is working.

I have quarterly date in this format and I need to convert to SRF. Can someone helps me.

Format of my date data.

Date

2000q1

2000q2

2000q3

2000q4

2001q1

2001q2

2001q3

2001q4

2002q1

2002q2

2002q3

2002q4

2003q1

2003q2

2003q3

2003q4

2004q1

2004q2

2004q3

2004q4

2005q1

2005q2

2005q3

2005q4

2006q1

2006q2

2006q3

2006q4

2007q1

2007q2

2007q3

2007q4

2008q1

2008q2

2008q3

2008q4

2009q1

2009q2

2009q3

2009q4

2010q1

2010q2

2010q3

2010q4

2011q1

2011q2

2011q3

2011q4

2012q1

2012q2

2012q3

2012q4

2013q1

2013q2

2013q3

2013q4

Nigel

[Nick Cox]

Nigel: You didn't use dataex (SSC) as we request to show a data example -- please see https://www.statalist.org/forums/help#stata -- so it's ambiguous whether you have a string variable or a numeric variable already assigned a quarterly date display format. But if it was the latter, presumably you wouldn't be asking this question.

Assuming that you have a string variable there, then

. di quarterly("2000q1", "YQ")
160

. di %tq quarterly("2000q1", "YQ")
2000q1

shows that the function quarterly() is what is needed to convert string dates of that form to a numeric variable, say

gen QDate = quarterly(Date, "YQ")
format QDate %tq

Reports of the form "I have tried all possible suggestions I have seen and nothing is working" are not helpful if you want an explanation of what you did wrong. The function quarterly() is documented in help datetime which is the port of first call for questions such as these.

New users often tend to try to Google everything; experienced users look at the help and manuals within Stata, although understanding their structure and style is what comes with experience.

The entire FAQ Advice gives hints on asking questions.

[Nigel Taylor]

Hi Nick, thank you for your help. This is how Stata is seeing my data

* Example generated by -dataex-. To install: ssc install dataex
clear
input str6 date
"2000q1"
"2000q2"
"2000q3"
"2000q4"
"2001q1"
"2001q2"
"2001q3"
"2001q4"
"2002q1"
"2002q2"
"2002q3"
"2002q4"
"2003q1"
"2003q2"
"2003q3"

This is just my first week of using Stata. I normally use Eviews but it is suggested that I move over to Stata.

[Nigel Taylor]

I tried this code gen date2 = date(date, "QY") and I got this message (2520 missing values generated).

Date is the original date data that I need SRF.

* Example generated by -dataex-. To install: ssc install dataex
clear
input str6 date float date2
"2000q1" .
"2000q2" .
"2000q3" .
"2000q4" .
"2001q1" .
"2001q2" .
"2001q3" .
"2001q4" .
"2002q1" .
"2002q2" .
"2002q3" .
"2002q4" .
"2003q1" .
"2003q2" .
"2003q3" .
end

I also used this code



. gen QDate = date(date, "YQ")
(2520 missing values generated)

.
. format QDate %tq

I am using Stata 13 on Window 10.

What am I missing?

[Nick Cox]

I didn't recommend that because it's wrong. date() yields daily dates. You need quarterly() to get quarterly dates. The exact code you need was in #2.

[Nigel Taylor]

Thanks a lot Nick. It works. Many thanks.

[William Lisowski]

Welcome to Statalist, and to Stata, Nigel.

I'm sympathetic to you as a new user of Stata - it's a lot to absorb. And even worse if perhaps you are under pressure to produce some output quickly. Nevertheless, I'd like to encourage you to take a step back from your immediate tasks.

When I began using Stata in a serious way, I started, as have others here, by reading my way through the Getting Started with Stata manual relevant to my setup. Chapter 18 then gives suggested further reading, much of which is in the Stata User's Guide, and I worked my way through much of that reading as well. There are a lot of examples to copy and paste into Stata's do-file editor to run yourself, and better yet, to experiment with changing the options to see how the results change.

All of these manuals are included as PDFs in the Stata installation (since version 11) and are accessible from within Stata - for example, through the PDF Documentation section of Stata's Help menu. The objective in doing the reading was not so much to master Stata as to be sure I'd become familiar with a wide variety of important basic techniques, so that when the time came that I needed them, I might recall their existence, if not the full syntax, and know how to find out more about them in the help files and PDF manuals.

The Stata documentation is really exemplary - there's just a lot of it. The path I followed surfaces the things you need to know to get started in a hurry and to work effectively.

In particular, it would have take you to the very detailed Chapter 24 (Working with dates and times) of the Stata User's Guide PDF, which should be the first stop for anyone new to working with Stata dates and times. After that, the help datetime documentation will usually be enough to point the way.

Good luck!

[Nigel Taylor]

Thanks William for your kind words. After a few days, I think I am doing ok with Stata. I am now wondering why I did not start using this software earlier.