Re: st: Generating exact copy of variable

[Jeph Herrin <junk@spandrel.net>]

See  -help clonevar-



Philipp Rehm wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> is there a way to generate an exact copy of a variable? By "exact copy", I mean a variable with the same storage type, display format and value label. (I can't use -rename- for my problem). I am using Stata/SE 10.1, Windows XP.
>
> Below is an example of the problem I ran into.
>
> Many thanks,
> Philipp
>
>
> . gen test_id= id
>
> . compare test_id id
>
>                                         ---------- difference ----------
>                             count       minimum      average     maximum
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> test_id<id                 543121          -121    -4.120179          -1
> test_id=id                  79808
> test_id>id                 157474             1     19.96243         127
>                        ----------
> jointly defined            780403          -121     1.160693         127
>                        ----------
> total                      780403
>
> . d test_id id
>
>               storage  display     value
> variable name   type   format      label      variable label
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> test_id         float  %9.0g
> id              double %10.0g                 personal id
>
> . gen double test2_id= id
>
> . compare test2_id id
>
>                                         ---------- difference ----------
>                             count       minimum      average     maximum
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> test2_id=id                780403
>                        ----------
> jointly defined            780403             0            0           0
>                        ----------
> total                      780403
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