Hi Art, your solution worked fine - and you interpreted what I wanted - a date variable thanks Muir Dr Muir Houston Lecturer DACE Faculty of Education University of Glasgow 0141-330-4699

________________________________

From: Art Kendall [mailto:Art@DrKendall.org] Sent: Mon 22/09/2008 13:37 To: Muir Houston Cc: SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: Date format

I assumed that you wanted a date variable,and that inserting the punctuation was just a step toward that. If not please reply, it is also possible to create a string variable that people will read as a date, but will not be a date variable. try something like this untested syntax, be sure to double check the century assigned. You may want the date variable to be displayed in a format other than date10.

numeric myday mymonth myyear (f2). compute myday = number(substr(olddate,1,2),f2). compute mymonth = number(substr(olddate,3,2),f2). compute myyear = number(substr(olddate,5,2),f2). numeric newdate (date10). compute newdate = date.dmy(myday,mymonth,myyear).

Art Kendall Social Research Consultants

Muir Houston wrote: > Hi Listers > > Trying to use a date format - the excel file I am importing has two > fields which contain dates in a ddmmyy format - however, there are no > spaces or punctuation between dd mm and yy > > Is the best way to insert a '.' or '/' between parts of the string or is > there another way > > I tried using the GUI to change to one of the date formats offered, but > succeeded only in wiping out the data - so shut down and open again > > > Thanks > > Muir > > ===================== > To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to > LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the > command. To leave the list, send the command > SIGNOFF SPSSX-L > For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command > INFO REFCARD > > >

====================To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the command. To leave the list, send the command SIGNOFF SPSSX-L For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command INFO REFCARD