Steven Stillman (LMPG)
>
>
> Hi. I have a string variable which contains information on
> a maximum of 6
> choices made (of education). The choices are numbered 1-10
> and are a
> running string. They can be in any order and can be
> repeated. I want to
> create 6 variables choice1, choice2, ... choice6. The
> problem I am running
> into is that all numbers are 1 digit besides 10
> (fortunately 0 is not a
> choice) and 10 can be located anywhere in the string.
>
> Here is a snippet of what I have and what I am trying to do.
>
> ed choice1 choice2
> choice3 etc.
> 54. 54 5 4
> .
> 65. 89 8 9
> .
> 66. 5 5 .
> .
> 67. 1 1 .
> .
> 78. 932 9 3
> 2
> 81. 10 10 .
> .
> 97. 8 8 .
> .
> 103. 105410 10 5 4
>
>
I assume Stata 8.
First, replace all occurrences of "10" by any other
single character, say "x".
gen ed2 = ed
replace ed2 = subinstr(ed2,"10","x",.)
Now split by single characters, but
reverse the "10" -> "x" mapping:
forval i = 1/6 {
gen choice`i' = substr(ed2,`i',1)
replace choice`i' = "10" if choice`i' == "x"
}
That could be
gen choice`i' =
cond(substr(ed2,`i',1 == "x"), "10", substr(ed2,`i',1))
In Stata < 8, you need to specify a string data
type with -generate-, as you know.
On such multiple response problems, see also
How do I deal with multiple responses?
http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/data/multresp.html
Nick
[email protected]
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