Hello everyone,




I have a data set with the variable date in it and it looks like this


Code:
date

19990106

20000425

19990930

...


it is in this format currently:

Code:
                         storage                     display     value
          variable       name   type          format     label      variable label 
          date            long    %12.0g


How can I convert it to a normal date, so I can substract other dates from it? Because I have a second date variable in this format, which I think should be correct?: (And it looks like 13sept1999 in the editor)


Code:
                                         storage            display    value
                variable            name   type    format     label      variable label
                 event_date      int     %td                                      event_date


I tried the following but I got an error:

Code:
 . gen edate2 = date(date, "ymd")
 type mismatch r(109);


I'd be really thankful for any ideas, Thanks!