Dear Statalist,
thanks for the answers.I have circumvented going through all the some 4000
rows ,by :
drop _all
input str15 s1 str15 s2 str15 s3 str15 s4 str15 s5 str15 s6 str15 s7 str5
Party Year District str6 Won
Smith White ,John (James) Dem 1920 6 Won
Black , Tom k/a Tommy Lib 1932 6
Fish , James Cons 1939 2
.......................................
.........................................
Brown Balck, Sam Dem 2002 4 Won
end
di _N
local i = 1
while `i'<= 7 {
capture replace s`i'="" if s`i'==")" | s`i'=="(" | s`i'=="K" | s`i'=="k" |
s`i'=="A" | s`i'=="a" | s`i'=="/" | s`i'=="'" | s`i'=="[" | s`i'=="]"
local i = `i'+1
}
di _N
gen n = _n
local no = _N
di `no'
sort n
save s2s7,replace
Then I run the same program ,but with "str15 s7" missing , ie
drop _all
input str15 s1 str15 s2 str15 s3 str15 s4 str15 s5 str15 s6 str15 s7 str5
Party Year District str6 Won
Smith White ,John (James) Dem 1920 6 Won
Black , Tom k/a Tommy Lib 1932 6
Fish , James Cons 1939 2
.......................................
.........................................
Brown Balck, Sam Dem 2002 4 Won
end
di _N
local i = 1
while `i'<= 7 {
capture replace s`i'="" if s`i'==")" | s`i'=="(" | s`i'=="K" | s`i'=="k" |
s`i'=="A" | s`i'=="a" | s`i'=="/" | s`i'=="'" | s`i'=="[" | s`i'=="]"
local i = `i'+1
}
di _N
gen n = _n + `no'
local no = _N + `no'
di `no'
sort n
save s2s6,replace
...... and continue removing one string at a time until no new data is read
by Stata. Then merge s2s7,s2s6, ..... s2s3 .
This requires some work ,but it is the most efficient way that I know of.
Victor Michael Zammit
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