transforming YYYYMM format into a date in SPSS

[vanels]

Hi everyone,

I am looking for help!

I have a variable containing a date with the format: YYYYMM. This format is not listed in the conversion wizard of SPSS so I am looking for another way to convert it into a date (any format will do). It seems like SPSS does not like only months and years only, so if it can be converted into DDMMYYYY with all days being the first of that month, it would also be fine.

I am working with SPSS 20.0 and any solutions I have found on the net so far did not work.

Thanks a TON for anyone who can help me out!!

Elsie
 

[Bruce Weaver]

Is your YYYYMM variable a string?  If so, you could do something like this:

DATA LIST free /datestr (A6).
BEGIN DATA
199010 200109 201201
END DATA.
LIST.

compute #y = number(substr(datestr,1,4),f4).
compute #m = number(substr(datestr,5,2),f2).
compute newdate = DATE.MOYR(#m,#y).
formats newdate(moyr).
list.

OUTPUT:

datestr  newdate
 
199010  OCT 1990
200109  SEP 2001
201201  JAN 2012
 
Number of cases read:  3    Number of cases listed:  3

vanels wrote

Hi everyone,

I am looking for help!

I have a variable containing a date with the format: YYYYMM. This format is not listed in the conversion wizard of SPSS so I am looking for another way to convert it into a date (any format will do). It seems like SPSS does not like only months and years only, so if it can be converted into DDMMYYYY with all days being the first of that month, it would also be fine.

I am working with SPSS 20.0 and any solutions I have found on the net so far did not work.

Thanks a TON for anyone who can help me out!!

Elsie

[Maguin, Eugene]

You pick a day. I'll pick the 15th. Let's call the yyyymm string 'x'.

Compute date1=date.mdy(number(substr(x,5,2),f2.0),15, number(substr(x,1,4),f4.0)).

Gene Maguin

-----Original Message-----
From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of vanels
Sent: Friday, June 01, 2012 8:35 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: transforming YYYYMM format into a date in SPSS

Hi everyone,

I am looking for help!

I have a variable containing a date with the format: YYYYMM. This format is not listed in the conversion wizard of SPSS so I am looking for another way to convert it into a date (any format will do). It seems like SPSS does not like only months and years only, so if it can be converted into DDMMYYYY with all days being the first of that month, it would also be fine.

I am working with SPSS 20.0 and any solutions I have found on the net so far did not work.

Thanks a TON for anyone who can help me out!!

Elsie


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[David Marso]

If this is a string variable then consider Bruce's and Gene's suggestions.  If Numeric then you will do well to look to the MOD and TRUNC functions to extract the Year and Month components.