Date:         Thu, 2 Sep 2004 15:18:04 -0500
Reply-To:     "Oliver, Richard" <richard@spss.com>
Sender:       "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Oliver, Richard" <richard@spss.com>
Subject:      Re: Date again
Comments: To: Mahbub Khandoker <Mahbub_Khandoker@camh.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Unless I'm missing something, the data presented in the example fit one of the supported date formats: SDATE. To be more precise, in this case SDATE11; so you could either read the data as SDATE11 to begin with or simply convert the string to a date with:

COMPUTE datevar=NUMBER(stringdate, sdate11).
FORMATS datevar (sdate11).

You could, of course, substitute another date format in the FORMATS command.

-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf Of
Mahbub Khandoker
Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2004 2:43 PM
To: SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Date again


Thanks Richard, it's work fine.

 -----Original Message-----
From:   Richard Ristow [mailto:wrristow@mindspring.com]
Sent:   September 2, 2004 3:35 PM
To:     Mahbub Khandoker; SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject:        Re: Date again

At 02:06 PM 9/2/2004, Mahbub Khandoker wrote:

>I would like to convert the string date to normal date format.
>The dates (string) are now as follows,
>2004 Jan,11
>2003 Oct,18
>2004 Jun,10
>2003 Aug,15
>2004 May,03

Many date input problems in SPSS require some string manipulation and
the NUMBER function. Fortunately, that's usually all they take. Here's
one solution for this format. Tested code; this is SPSS draft output:

NEW FILE.
DATA LIST FIXED /CHAR_DT 01-11 (A).

Data List will read 1 records from the command file
Variable   Rec   Start     End         Format
CHAR_DT      1       1      11         A11

BEGIN DATA.
2004 Jan,11
2003 Oct,18
2004 Jun,10
2003 Aug,15
2004 May,03
END DATA.
/*--  LIST             /*-*/.

STRING INTNL_DT (A11).
COMPUTE INTNL_DT = CONCAT(SUBSTR(CHAR_DT,10,02),'-', /* Day   */
                           SUBSTR(CHAR_DT,06,03),'-', /* Month */
                           SUBSTR(CHAR_DT,01,04))     /* Year  */.
/*--  LIST             /*-*/.

-  NUMERIC              SPSS_DT   (DATE11).
-  VARIABLE WIDTH       SPSS_DT   (11).
-  VARIABLE ALIGNMENT   SPSS_DT   (CENTER).

COMPUTE SPSS_DT = NUMBER(INTNL_DT,DATE11).
/**/  LIST             /*-*/.

List
CHAR_DT     INTNL_DT        SPSS_DT

2004 Jan,11 11-Jan-2004 11-JAN-2004
2003 Oct,18 18-Oct-2003 18-OCT-2003
2004 Jun,10 10-Jun-2004 10-JUN-2004
2003 Aug,15 15-Aug-2003 15-AUG-2003
2004 May,03 03-May-2004 03-MAY-2004

Number of cases read:  5    Number of cases listed:  5