Re: st: RE: Changing variable name to variable label

[Michael Norman Mitchell <Michael.Norman.Mitchell@gmail.com>]

Oh, I just saw Nick's reply... that is much better than mine.
Michael N. Mitchell
See the Stata tidbit of the week at...
http://www.MichaelNormanMitchell.com

On 2010-04-12 1.38 PM, Michael Norman Mitchell wrote:
> Dear Daniel
>
>   Indeed, I think that Martin is on the right track... here is some 
> sample code
>
> clear
> sysuse auto
> unab vlist : *
> display "`vlist'"
> foreach varname of local vlist {
>   local varlabel : variable label `varname'
>   mata : vl = st_local("varlabel")
>   mata : newvarname = strtoname(vl)
>   mata : st_local("varname2",newvarname)
>   rename `varname' `varname2'
> }
>
> describe , full
>
>   I know this could be done better using more mata, but I hope it helps
>
> Michael N. Mitchell
> See the Stata tidbit of the week at...
> http://www.MichaelNormanMitchell.com
>
> On 2010-04-12 1.24 PM, Martin Weiss wrote:
> > <>
> >
> > *******
> > help mf_strtoname
> > *******
> >
> > comes to mind...
> >
> >
> > HTH
> > Martin
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> > [mailto:owner-statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu] On Behalf Of Daniel Jones
> > Sent: Montag, 12. April 2010 22:18
> > To: statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu
> > Subject: st: Changing variable name to variable label
> >
> > I have a set of repeated cross sections (10 years) which I would like to
> > combine into a single dataset. The problem is that the variable names 
> > are
> > different across years -- it's a survey, so a variable I need might be
> > called "Q13" one year and "Q17" the next.
> >
> > Variable labels seem to be constant across years, so I thought a 
> > solution
> > might be to rename the the variables on the basis of their labels. I 
> > found a
> > previous Statalist posting which describes such a procedure. However, 
> > for
> > this to work, variable labels need to already be appropriately 
> > formatted to
> > be variable names -- i.e., no spaces, etc. My variable labels are of the
> > form "Education Volunteer - Past 12 Months." I'm assuming there's a 
> > way to
> > remove spaces, etc. from variable labels, and then make them the 
> > variable
> > names -- but I don't know what it is.
> >
> > Alternatively, it seems like there could be a simpler solution to 
> > merging
> > all of these years together. Does anyone have any suggestions?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Daniel
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