--- Eric Uslaner <[email protected]> wrote:
> Thanks Maarten and Nick for the responses so far, but I know of
> label, rename, and renvars (all great). But I want to avoid having
> to rename and relabel 300 variables in successive commands. What I
> am looking for is an editor/spreadsheet, as in SPSS's variable view.
> That would save a ton of time. As I see it now, using the data
> editor is far less cumbersome than 300 rename/label statements and
> renvars doesn't make the whole process that much easier.
Changing data by clicking in a spreadsheet seems very dangerous to me.
Especially with such a repetitive task you so easily skip one variable
and rename about half your variables using wrong names. Imagine having
to do that all over again!! It is much safer to make such changes in a
.do file (or a syntax file if you want to use SPSS). If you get weird
results it is much easier to find the source of the problem and
changing such a .do file is much easier and much less work. So I would
be biased against such a fascility; it would only promote bad practice.
-- Maarten
-----------------------------------------
Maarten L. Buis
Department of Social Research Methodology
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Boelelaan 1081
1081 HV Amsterdam
The Netherlands
visiting address:
Buitenveldertselaan 3 (Metropolitan), room Z434
+31 20 5986715
http://home.fsw.vu.nl/m.buis/
-----------------------------------------
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