Category: Date Variables
Convert String Date to SPSS Date Variable
“I’ve a string variable in my data holding dates formatted as ‘01JAN2016’ without separators between the day, month and year components. To make things worse, the month abbreviations are in Dutch and 3 of those differ from their English counterparts. How can I change this string into an SPSS date variable?” Step 1: Add Separators […]
Extract a Year from a Date
Introduction Extracting the year (or any component) from a date is straightforward with the XDATE (“EXtract DATE“) function. Copy-paste-run the syntax presented below for a demonstration of XDATE. SPSS Xdate Syntax Example *1. Create mini test data. data list free/date(edate10). begin data ’01/01/01′ ’12/12/12′ end data. *2. Extract the year. compute year_from_date = xdate.year(date). exe. *3. Hide decimals for […]
Convert Numeric to Date Variable
Summary For time calculations (such as the number of days between two dates) proper date variables are needed. In some cases, the digits of a numeric variable may represent year, month and day. This tutorial shows how to convert this format into an actual date variable. Convert Numbers to SPSS Date Variables In some cases, […]
SPSS Date Variables Basics
SPSS date variables may seem a bit puzzling at first. However, getting things done fast and accurately with SPSS date variables is not hard at all if you understand some basics. This tutorial will walk you through. You can follow along by downloading and opening hospital.sav. SPSS Date Variables – What Are They? First of all, […]
SPSS – Convert String into Date Variable
For converting string variables to date variables, ALTER TYPE is the way to go. This tutorial demonstrates how to do this and points out a couple of caveats. For those who can’t use ALTER TYPE, we’ll propose some alternatives. SPSS Alter Type The syntax below first creates a mini dataset holding 8 string variables. They demonstrate the 8 most common date formats. Next, […]
SPSS Date Variables Tutorial
SPSS date calculations are much easier than they may seem at first. The first key to success is understanding what SPSS date variables really are. Next, choose (and possibly combine) the right date functions. This tutorial will walk you through the main ones. We recommend you follow along by downloading and opening hospital.sav. SPSS Main Date Functions The table […]