Convert string YYYY-MM-DD to MM/DD/YYYY date in SPSS?

I would like to convert a column of strings that are in YYYY-MM-DD into date format of MM/DD/YYYY.

I would like to use exclusively spss syntax to do this. When I try to use:

STRING date (A10) "YYYY-MM-DD".
STRING converted_date (A10) "MM/DD/YYYY".

* Convert the entire "date" column to MM/DD/YYYY format.
COMPUTE converted_date = DATE.MDY(SUBSTR(date, 6, 2), 
SUBSTR(date, 9, 2), SUBSTR(date, 1, 4)).

FORMAT converted_date (ADATE10).

EXECUTE.

The errors that I get relate to variable lists being empty or variables already being defined. I would appreciate any approach to do this!

There are a few problems with your syntax:

1. Your original date variable should already exist, you dont need to define it here.

2. When you define your second variable you add "MM/DD/YYYY" at the end - this is what gives you the error message. If this is meant as a remark for yourself you can use:

   STRING converted_date (A10) /* "MM/DD/YYYY".

3. The command DATE.MDY creates a numeric variable, so you can't use it to calculate a string variable like you did, and

4. If you want to create a numeric variable instead, you need to feed DATE.MDY numbers and not strings.

So here are the two possibilities:

* create a string variable which will contain the date in the new format.
string converted_date_string (a10).
COMPUTE converted_date_string = concat(
      char.substr(date, 6, 2), "/",
      char.substr(date, 9, 2), "/", 
      char.substr(date, 1, 4)).

* convert date into a numeric value with MM/DD/YYYY format.
COMPUTE converted_date_numeric = DATE.MDY(
      number(char.substr(date, 6, 2),f2), 
      number(char.substr(date, 9, 2),f2), 
      number(char.substr(date, 1, 4),f4)
      ).
FORMAT converted_date_numeric (ADATE10).

Note that a string variable is just a string... If you want to calculate on dates you need to use the second option above - it has to be a numeric variable.