st: Compress and saveold

["Gauri Khanna" <gwkhanna@hotmail.com>]

Dear List members,

I sent a stata dataset created in version 9.2 to a stata 8 user who ran into 
the 80 characters limit problem for string variables. As you know, Stata 8 
only supports 80 characters on string variables whereas the dataset I 
created in version 9.2 has a couple of string variables that are in excess 
of 80.

1. So I tried to compress these variables. But when I look at them again 
using the -describe- command I find no difference in their length? Does that 
mean that these variables are not compressed or cannot be compressed?

Here is the output I get on the 10 variables that I compress:

-compress gm_fun_o comments gm13_o gm12_o gm10c_o  gm10a_o  gm9b_o gm8_o 
gm7_o gm4c-
-des gm_fun_o comments gm13_o gm12_o gm10c_o  gm10a_o  gm9b_o gm8_o gm7_o 
gm4c-

             storage  display     value
variable name   type   format      label      variable label
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
gm_fun_o        str102 %102s                  GM_FUN_O
comments        str244 %244s                  COMMENTS
gm13_o          str168 %168s                  GM13_O
gm12_o          str107 %107s                  GM12_O
gm10c_o         str165 %165s                  GM10C_O
gm10a_o         str137 %137s                  GM10A_O
gm9b_o          str162 %162s                  GM9B_O
gm8_o           str160 %160s                  GM8_O
gm7_o           str175 %175s                  GM7_O
gm4c            str244 %244s                  GM4C

These are exaclty of the same length prior to compressing!

I also eyeballed the data to see if there are leading and trailing blanks 
but unfortunately I do have some observations that fill in the entire string 
length. So I cannot use -trim-, -ltrim-, and -substr()-.

2. I have used the command -saveold GM- where GM is the name of my dataset 
but am not sure if that will work. Do any of you know about -saveold- 
solving the problem?

I look forward to your response.

Regards,

Gauri

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