Re: st: Re: RE: values to labels

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

Michael's description matches my reading of the problem.

There is a small ragbag of unofficial -label- utilities in the
-labutil- package on SSC. The -labmask- command may be what
is wanted.

. ssc type labmask.hlp
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
help for labmask
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Assign values or value labels of one variable as value labels to another

labmask varname [if exp] [in range] , values(varname)[lblname(lblname)
          decode ]

Description

    labmask assigns the values (or optionally the value labels) of one
    variable values as the value labels of another variable varname.  Any
    existing value labels will be overwritten. The idea behind the program
    name is that henceforth the face that varname presents will not be its
    own, but a mask borrowed from values. Thus, for example, a year 
variable
    might be coded by party winning at election and those value labels then
    shown as labels on a graph axis.

    varname must take on integer values for the observations selected. 
values
    must not vary within groups defined by the distinct values of 
varname for
    the observations selected. However, there is no rule that the same 
label
    may not be assigned to different values of varname.

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

Michael Blasnik

I don't think this does what they asked -- this creates value labels 
that are sequential values labeled with the values of a variable -- in 
fact it does what -encode- does more directly. The question was about 
labeling the values of one variable using the values of another -- a 
slightly trickier problem. I've written an ado that does this but 
haven't posted it to SSC (no help file, not fully gracious with errors). 
I could send a copy off-list if Caleb would like.

Scott Merryman

Here is one way:

levelsof year, local(levels)
local i = 1
foreach l of local levels {
local mylabels "`mylabels' `i' `l'"
local ++i
}
label define label `mylabels'
label values round label

Caleb Southworth

Is there a convenient way to convert the values of one variable into
labels? For example, if rounds of survey are given in a particular year,
then

. tab round, sum(year)

round | Summary of year
number | Mean Std. Dev. Freq.
------------+------------------------------------
1 | 1992 0 4763
2 | 1993 0 6037
5 | 1994 0 2787
6 | 1995 0 2650
7 | 1996 0 2611
8 | 1998 0 2651
9 | 2000 0 2733
10 | 2001 0 3201
11 | 2002 0 3339
12 | 2003 0 3351
------------+------------------------------------
Total | 1996.8892 3.9638084 34123

Of course, I could define labels for round and label its values. My desire
is to automate this process over several surveys and many variables to
label graph axes. Thanks!
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