fix dates

[Jake Naismith]

Hello everyone,

Can someone help me with converting the dates that I have in my data. Here, I have dates in the form of "18.11.2020 00:48:07" and I want to convert to something like "18nov2020 00:48:07". Also, The original variable is string can I convert it to float?

Thank you for your time

* Example generated by -dataex-. For more info, type help dataex
clear
input str19 open_date
"18.11.2020 00:48:07"
"18.11.2020 00:48:07"
end

[Leonardo Guizzetti]

Thank you for providing the data example.

gen want = clock(open_date, "DMYhms")
format want %tc
list

Results:

     +------------------------------------------+
     |           open_date                 want |
     |------------------------------------------|
  1. | 18.11.2020 00:48:07   18nov2020 00:48:07 |
  2. | 18.11.2020 00:48:07   18nov2020 00:48:07 |
     +------------------------------------------+

There is a lot to learn about internal representation of dates and times in Stata. It is well worth the time to read the manual for datetimes. See -help datetime- and especially the PDF documentation (linked at the top).

[Nick Cox]

You should always use double for date-times, and never float. That isn't obviously biting in #2 but it is much repeated advice, e.g. at

help datetime

[Jake Naismith]

Thank you so much Leonardo and Dr Nick!