Nick,
The solution of -label save- is exactly what I wanted. It's a good thing to remind oneself (i.e. myself) that the various commands are really canned do files that one can save to a separate file and run in another dataset.
I agree with you that it is a good idea to separate the steps of creating a set of value labels on the one hand, and attaching this set to variables on the other.
Thanks,
Tewodaj
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 15:35:27 +0100
From: "Nick Cox" <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: st: Transforming numeric to categorical (not to string!)
-labvalclone- is a wrapper for the creation
and running of a do file defining a set of
value labels, except that on each line of
the do file the name of the value label
is changed.
For changing the labels in another file,
you could -label save- explicitly to
a do file --- optionally change the value label name
(e.g with the aid of a text editor) ---
and run it with various data files.
At its simplest,
use A
label save COLOURS using colours.do
use B
do colours
label val HUES COLOURS
I once contemplated a -labelrename-.
What put me off was mostly the thought
that the program might be dangerous
because of assumptions about what it did
and didn't do. That is, suppose you rename
a set of value labels. You probably want
to associate the newly named set with
the variables its predecessor was previously linked to --
but you might not. It seemed better
to leave users to work out the separate
steps they needed.
Nick
[email protected]
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Tewodaj Mogues
Dept. of Agricultural and Applied Economics
University of Wisconsin - Madison
427 Lorch St. #317, Taylor Hall
Madison, WI 53706
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