How do I add leading zeros to a string variable
conditional on its length? My objective is to create a
unique identifier, say id, by combining the elements
of two variables, region and edno (that's enumeration
district number). These variables were originally
numerics so, to begin, I -tostring-ed them and created
new variables reg and ed. My data are of the form:
reg ed
10 100
11 3200
12 16400
Reg is consistently a str2 but ed is not (at most,
though, it's a str5). I wish my new variable to be a
str7 of the form "1000100", "1103200", and "1216400"
for the examples provided. So, for ed, I need to add
two leading zeros to the first observation and one to
the second. Then I need to create the new variable.
I reviewed the FAQ and -search-ed "leading zeros" (I
looked at Nick Cox's "Removing leading..." for ideas
that might be implemented in the reverse; also Gary
Peterson's "Is there a way..."). Because I must only
change ed when it's of less than 5 characters,
however, I am unsure what to do. Any thoughts would be
greatly appreciated.
By the way, I'm using Stata/SE 9.1 for Windows, born
on 20 January 2006. Plus I'm on the digest so forgive
me if I don't respond immediately.
Cheers,
Ainsley Charles
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