Kompal Sinha
> I have converted a 15 digit string into a numerical number
> by using real()
> command. My problem is that now the data is read as floats
> while I want it
> to be in doubles as the string happens to be the caseId of
> my data. How do I proceed??
Antoine Terracol
> try using -destring- (Stata 7) instead of real()
There is a fairly lengthy discussion of numbers
and strings in Stata Journal 2(3), 314-329,
which focuses on when to use numbers and when
to use strings, on -encode- and -decode-,
-real()- and -string()-, and -destring-
and -tostring-.
I ask, in response, if the variable in
question is an identifier why do
you want to convert it to numeric? Do you
want to do calculations with it?
In most cases I have heard of there
is no gain in converting identifiers
to numeric, even when all the characters
are numeric.
Nick
[email protected]
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