RE: st: Remove numbers from variable name

["Nick Cox" <n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk>]

In terms of the other question, regular expressions offer one way to
distinguish one from two digits: 

foreach v of var question* { 
	if regexm("`v'", "^question[1-9].*") { 
		local newname = substr("`v'", 10, .) 
		rename `v' `newname' 
	}
	else if regexm("`v'", "^question[1-9][0-9].*") { 
		local newname = substr("`v'", 11, .) 
		rename `v' `newname' 
	}
	else di "`v': problematic name" 
}

Nick 
n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk 

Martin Weiss

" Does not -subinstr- work for string observation, and not variable
names?"

-subinstr- substitutes parts of strings within strings. Since a variable
name is just a string, I can use it for your purposes:

*************
clear*
gen question5doyouhave=""
gen question6areyou=""

foreach var of varlist _all{
	loc newname = substr(subinstr("`var'","question","",1),2,.)
	rename `var' `newname'
}
*************

For the -varname-s containing two digits, you would have to change the
code
to "),3,.)" at the end of the -local- line...

Rasika Raghavan

Richard,

Thanks. It worked out fine. Can you suggest though a way in which I
don't have to specify the variables? Why I am asking is that, for
single digit questions it would be predrop(10) and for two digit
question numbers, it would be predrop(11). While it was easy in my
case, I can think of situations where this might work out to be
tedious.

Martin,

The "are you" was a typo. But thanks, I had not realized something
like -strtoname- existed.

I did not quite follow "For your substitution, look at -subinstr()-.
Why not put the question in the -var label- or a -note- to the
variable?"

Does not -subinstr- work for string observation, and not variable names?


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