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st: RE: Re: ST: transferring labels


From   "Scott Merryman" <[email protected]>
To   <[email protected]>
Subject   st: RE: Re: ST: transferring labels
Date   Thu, 11 Nov 2004 21:14:46 -0600

Ric,

Using the auto data set as an example, suppose your data file (data.dta)
consists of the variables: price, mpg, trunk, turn, and weight.  

The label file consists of the variable names and new labels and it is also
a Stata data file (labels.dta) and looks like:

. l

     +----------------------------+
     |   var1                var2 |
     |----------------------------|
  1. |    mpg    Miles per gallon |
  2. |  price    Price in dollars |
  3. |  trunk       Size of Trunk |
  4. |   turn         Turn Radius |
  5. | weight   Weight of Vehicle |
     +----------------------------+

One way to attach these new labels to the variables in the data file is as
follows:

. use "C:\Documents and Settings\Scott_2\Desktop\data.dta", clear
(1978 Automobile Data)

*alphabetizes the variables

. aorder

. save ,replace
file C:\Documents and Settings\Scott_2\Desktop\data.dta saved

. use "C:\Documents and Settings\Scott_2\Desktop\labels.dta", clear
(1978 Automobile Data)

*Sort the variable names in the label file

. sort var1

*Merge the data file to the labels file

. merge using "C:\Documents and Settings\Scott_2\Desktop\data.dta"

*Now the first 5 observations look like:

. cl var1-weight in 1/5, noobs

var1               var2       mpg     price     trunk      turn    weight
mpg     Miles per gallon        22     4,099        11        40     2,930
price   Price in dollars        17     4,749        11        40     3,350
trunk      Size of Trunk        22     3,799        12        35     2,640
turn         Turn Radius        20     4,816        16        40     3,250
weight  Weight of Vehicle       15     7,827        20        43     4,080


*Cycle through the variables and pick up the new label from var2

. local i = 1

. foreach var of varlist mpg - weight {
  2. 		local label = var2[`i']
  3.        label var `var' "`label'"
  4.        local i = `i' + 1
  5. }

*Now, the new labels are attached.
. desc mpg-weight

              storage  display     value
variable name   type   format      label      variable label
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
mpg             int    %8.0g                  Miles per gallon
price           int    %8.0gc                 Price in dollars
trunk           int    %8.0g                  Size of Trunk
turn            int    %8.0g                  Turn Radius
weight          int    %8.0gc                 Weight of Vehicle

. drop var1 var2 _merge

Hope this helps,
Scott


> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:owner-
> [email protected]] On Behalf Of Eric Uslaner
> Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 5:13 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: st: Re: ST: transferring labels
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I have downloaded a data set that is in 3 parts, all in Excel.  Files 2
> and 3 are data, file 1 is a list of variable names and labels. I have
> transferred the data with names to Stata, but the labels are perplexing.
>  Here is  the format of the Excel spreadsheet with the variable names
> and labels:
> 
> Column A    Column B       Column C    Column D   Column E
> varname     varlabel          divider        varname     varlabel
> etc.               etc.                                    etc.
>     etc.
> 
> 
> Columns A&B are for data set 2 and C & D for data set 3 (though this is
> no problem--I can copy them into one column since the cases are
> identical).
> 
> Is there a way to transfer the variable labels without doing a lot of
> typing.  Stata Technical Support suggested putting each variable label
> into a do-file with quotation marks around each label (which I would
> have to type in by hand) and then pasting:
> 
> label var varname "varlabel" for each variable.
> 
> Does anyone have a more expeditous (and less tedious) way of doing this
> transfer?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Ric Uslaner
> [email protected]


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