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RE: st: Help with string problem


From   "Nick Cox" <[email protected]>
To   <[email protected]>
Subject   RE: st: Help with string problem
Date   Fri, 25 Aug 2006 13:09:45 +0100

Remember also -hexdump- in Stata. 

Nick 
[email protected] 

Fred Wolfe
 
> To see the difference, I used -outfile- and then examined the two 
> -apatkey-s at the hexadecimal level in a text editor. The key 
> variable that 
> didn't merge contained HEX(AO) characters instead of Hex(20). 
> Hex(A0) is 
> also a "blank" character (a "non-breaking space" in MS 
> office). In HEX the 
> code was "20 A0 A0 22" or space NB-space NB-space ". Somehow 
> this must have 
> been created in the Excel file that was sent to me.
 
> At 09:36 PM 8/24/2006, you wrote:
> >Someone sent me a list of IDs (apatkey)for participants 
> registered in our
> >databank. They sent an Excel file (alas). I pasted it into 
> Stata and later
> >used StatTransfer, both with the same result.
> >
> >What I did was to save the IDs sent to me. Then I -used- my 
> databank and
> >merged the new data in. The problem was that the merge didn't work as
> >people with the same apatkey didn't merge. Tracing this 
> down, I found that
> >the length of the merged variable was different from the 
> master variable.
> >It would seem that there are hidden characters in the case 
> where _merge == 2.
> >
> >Questions. Does anyone know how to see those hidden 
> characters? Is this a
> >known problem with the hated Excel?
> >
> >. replace apatkey=trim(apatkey)
> >. l apat greger _merge length if index(apatkey, "CLE210928")
> >
> >         +-----------------------------------------+
> >         |      apatkey   greger   _merge   length |
> >         |-----------------------------------------|
> >28469. |    CLE210928        .        1        9 |
> >74437. | CLE210928           1        2       12 |
> >         +-----------------------------------------+

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