I agree with Friedrich Huebler and Joseph Coveney. Jia wants the values of a string variable x to be the labels of a numeric variable y. It follows directly that any solution must pivot on assignments of the form
. label define y <value_of_y> "<value_of_x>", modify
(Joseph sets up his code so that he can use -add- not -modify-, but that's not a contradiction of the main story here.)
Jia's solution does not meet that requirement.
As Xiao Chen pointed out, this tactic is already codified as a program -labmask- available in the -labutil- package from SSC. -labmask- takes Friedrich's approach further by looping not over the observations but over the distinct values concerned.
(Joseph does that in an equivalent way.)
There are also checks that the numeric variable contains integers only -- in the observations specified -- and that values of x are constant within groups of y.
Thanks to Xiao Chen for the web page advertising -labmask-. I was not aware of that.
Jia says "I must [have] read a solution somewhere, but I can not recall it."
That is completely correct. Jia asked a question on 28 February to which an answer was also to use -labmask-.
============================== extract from Statalist archives 28 February
Jia Xiangping
Thanks a lot, Nick.
I just went through the commands of -labutil-, and found they are
quite useful. I should have known this earlier.
Nick Cox
> I understand this as follows:
>
> Suppose variable -x- has values 11, 12, 13, ... and value labels "A", "B", "C", ....
>
> You want -y- to have values 111, 112, 113, ... and the corresponding value labels.
>
> Try
>
> gen y = 100 + x
> labmask y, values(x) decode
>
> Here -labmask- is in -labutil- on SSC.
Jia Xiangping
> A variable in int storage type, reflecting different regions.
>
> label region code
> value
> 11 A
> 12 B
> 13 C
> 21 D
> 22 E
> 23 F
> 31 G
> 32 H
>
> Now I want to generate a new variable with a prefix "1" denoting the
> country code. But the variable still carry the codes.
> 111 A
> 112 B
> 113 C
> 121 D
> 122 E
> 123 F
> 131 G
>
> How shall I do that with -recode-? Or there are some other commands for that?
==========================
Jia Xiangping
There are two variables, one string and one numeric. The meaning of x
is supposed to be attached to y as its value label.
x y
RAKAI 21
RAKAI 21
RAKAI 21
MASAKA 22
MASAKA 22
MASAKA 22
MASAKA 22
MBALE 23
MBALE 23
MBALE 23
SIRONKO 24
SIRONKO 24
TORORO 25
TORORO 25
BUSIA 26
The simple way I did was:
. encode x, gen(newx)
. replace newx=y
. list newx y
Then it is found some are not replaced. I must read a solution
somewhere, but I can not recall it. Could someone give a quick
solution? Thanks.
newx x
65. | TORORO IGANGA |
66. | WAKISO MAYUGE |
67. | WAKISO MAYUGE |
68. | WAKISO MAYUGE |
69. | WAKISO MAYUGE |
70. | WAKISO MAYUGE |
71. | WAKISO MAYUGE |
72. | 30 JINJA |
73. | 30 JINJA |
74. | 30 JINJA |
75. | 31 KAMULI |
76. | 31 KAMULI |
ps. Stata 10. Windows XP.
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