Question

I have a variable period that contains a month as an abbreviated string (i.e. "JAN", "FEB", "MAR", etc). How do I convert period to a numeral (i.e. 1, 2, 3, etc)?

My solution is:

gen fake_date_s = "2000"+period+"1"
gen fake_date = date(fake_date_s, "YMD")
gen month = month(fake_date)

Answer 1

I don't think it's ugly:

clear

input ///
str3 period
JAN
FEB
DEC
end

list

gen monthnum = month(date("2000" + period + "1", "YMD"))

list

This also works:

gen monthnum = month(date(period, "M"))

as it sets the day and the year in the daily date to 01 and 1960, by default.

I'm sure you can find an alternative that doesn't use date functions, but why not use them?

Answer 2

Another approach is:

local i=1
foreach m in `c(Mons)' {
    replace month = "`i'" if month == upper("`m'")
    local ++i
}

destring month, replace

Convert string month to numeric

2 个答案: