converting to date

[Debaleena Goswami]

I have a variable "date" which consists of dates in the format _dd_mm_yyyy. I want it to be formatted as dates in proper dd-mm-yyyy . How can I edit the underscores?

[Øyvind Snilsberg]

clear
input str11 date
"_01_01_2000"
"_02_01_2000"
"_03_01_2000"
end

gen date2 = date(date,"DMY")
format date2 %td

gen date3 = substr(date,2,.)
replace date3 = subinstr(date3,"_","-",.)