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Re: st: RE: converting a string variable that has leading and embedded blanks to a numeric variable.


From   Ali Murat <[email protected]>
To   [email protected]
Subject   Re: st: RE: converting a string variable that has leading and embedded blanks to a numeric variable.
Date   Tue, 8 Feb 2005 21:07:30 +0200

My concern is that I need to transform the string hhid variable into
the numeric one If I wantto use Stata commands such as sort, merge,
collapse that all require a unique id variable for each observation-
or group. 21blank 2 and blank212 are differen hhid numebers and belong
to different households. When I use the following command
 destring newhhid, replace ignore(" ") 
hose two hhid numbers turned into the same numeric hhid variable hhid
that makes impossible to differentiate between them.
I hope now my question becomes clear. Thanks for your interest.
Ali M.

 

On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 18:38:04 -0000, Nick Cox <[email protected]> wrote:
> Sorry, but what's the problem?
> Stata did what you asked. If you
> do in fact believe that the blanks
> are somehow informative, your original
> variable is the one to use.
> 
> Nick
> [email protected]
> 
> Ali Murat
> 
> > I  am trying to convert a string household indentification variable
> > ,that has leading and embedded blanks,  to a numeric one. When I used
> > the destring command, the new numeric household identification number
> > has no longer unique values due to leading and embedded blanks in the
> > orıginal  string household identification variable. To be more
> > precise,  I would like to document what I have done so far:
> >
> > gen newhhid=hhid
> >
> > destring newhhid, replace ignore(" ")
> >
> > sort newid
> >
> > l hhid newhhid
> >
> >
> >
> > Obsnumber  hhid     newhhid
> >
> >  161. |         21 1       211 |
> >
> >  162. |         21 2       212 |
> >
> >  163. |          212       212 |
> >
> >  164. |          213       213 |
> >
> >  165. |         21 3       213 |
> >
> >       |------------------------|
> >
> >  166. |          214       214 |
> >
> >  167. |         21 4       214 |
> >
> >
> >
> > Please note that the observation 162 and 163 have a distinct hhid; the
> > fist has an embedded blankd, the second has a leading blank. However,
> > after using the destring command, they have same hhid number.
> >
> > How can I fix this problem.
> 
> *
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>

*
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