Date:         Fri, 29 Mar 2002 10:04:44 -0500
Reply-To:     Mark Casazza <Mark.Casazza@domino1.cuny.edu>
Sender:       "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Mark Casazza <Mark.Casazza@domino1.cuny.edu>
Subject:      Re: change mm/dd/yr to year
Comments: To: "S. Zitzer" <sallyz@u.washington.edu>
In-Reply-To:  <Pine.A41.4.44.0203281034140.49050-100000@mead4.u.washington.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Hi Sally,

Actually I had assumed that it was a date formatted variable.  But, since
you mentioned it, I was thinking about how to extract the year portion if it
had been a string.  The following works, but I'm wondering if anyone has a
cleaner way of doing it--especially one that doesn't require knowing whether
year is 2 or 4 digits.

--
* some data.
DATA LIST FIXED /datestr 01-8 (a).
BEGIN DATA
28/03/02
END DATA.

* chop into segments and extract third segment (year).
COMPUTE s1 = INDEX(datestr,'/').
STRING d2 (a8).
COMPUTE d2 = SUBSTR(datestr,s1+1,8-s1).
COMPUTE s2 = INDEX(d2,'/').
STRING year (a2).
COMPUTE year = SUBSTR(d2,s2+1).
EXE.

* cleanup.
MATCH FILES FILE = * /DROP = s1 s2 d2.
EXE.
--


Mark V. Casazza
Director of Academic Information
The City University of New York
555 W. 57th St. Suite 1240
New York, NY 10019

phone: 212.541.0396
fax:   212.541.0392
email: Mark.Casazza@mail.cuny.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of
S. Zitzer
Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2002 1:42 PM
To: SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: change mm/dd/yr to year


Does anyone know if Chai-Ling's variable is in Date format? When he shows
28/03/02 others have assumed it is in String format. If it is in Date
format there are functions to extract the month, day, and year.
XDATE.YEAR will return the year from a Date variable.

   Sally in Seattle


On Thu, 28 Mar 2002, Arthur J. Kendall wrote:

> Do you want a new variable that you will use for some other purpose?
> Or do you just want to display the current var differently?
>
>
> Chai-Ling Tien wrote:
>
> > Dear list, I know that this could be a simple and repeated question.
> > Does any one knows how to change a variable with mm/dd/yr to only
> > year? For example, I want to change from 28/03/02 to only 02.  Any
> > advise is greatly appreciated. Chia-Ling
>