Datetime variables

[Desiree Nilsson]

Hello Stata users,
I am working with a data set where I have datetime variables and I want to be able to use them to calculate time differences

The content of the variables have two types of style (both are string)

- 2020-05-10 18:23:54.061000+00:00
- 2020-05-11 19:05:23.485Z

What commands do I need to use to make Stata understand that these variables are datetime variable so that I can calculate time differences? I am using Stata 15

Thank you for your help!

Regards,

Désirée

[Ali Atia]

. gen double wanted = clock(ustrregexra(var1,"(.*?)\..*?$","$1"),"YMDhms")
. format wanted %tcCCYY-NN-DD_HH:MM:SS

. list
     +--------------------------------------------------------+
     |                             var1                wanted |
     |--------------------------------------------------------|
  1. | 2020-05-10 18:23:54.061000+00:00   2020-05-10 18:23:54 |
  2. |         2020-05-11 19:05:23.485Z   2020-05-11 19:05:23 |
     +--------------------------------------------------------+