No, it worked. It just did not do what you expected. 
So the next hypothesis is that you have spaces on the 
right, in which case you will need -rtrim()-. -trim()- 
would have done it either way. 
Presumably you will need to do this in all files. 
Nick 
[email protected] 
Marilyn Ibarra
 
> I still did not work.  When I put:
> 
> replace us_id = ltrim(us_id)
> 
> it says (0 real changes made). 
*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/