I have a string variable where values
have format 2 letters, followed by 6 digits,
followed by a letter. I'd like to create a new
variable with values for each obs equal to the
old value except that the final letter of the
value is removed. That final suffix letter can
range from "A" to "Z", in principle.
I suspect that there is an easy way of doing this,
but I can't think of it (nor did various searches
using -findit- reveal an easy way). [I can only
think of a roundabout way based on creating a macro with
an alpha list in it, and then doing some looping using
subinstr function.] Suggestions please.
(Illustration) how to convert values for
variable 'ni_number' to values of NEW_VAR,
as follows?
| ni_number NEW_VAR
|----------------------
| ZX223571C ZX223571
| LR796192A LR796192
| NE384662C NE384662
| LL283409A LL283409
| ZS663720B ZS663720
| ZW878830B ZW878830
| NM175824B NM175824
| YM212595C YM212595
| TA602684D TA602684
thanks
Stephen
----------------------
Professor Stephen P. Jenkins <[email protected]>
Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER)
University of Essex, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1206 873374. Fax: +44 (0)1206 873151.
http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk
*
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* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
