Thank you Martin, the pre-labeled feature of -encode- is brilliant.
Dropping the old variables will be simple.
Is there a simple way to then rename the resulting many new_variable
names back their old title?
e.g.: combining many of these commands into a shorter step?
rename new_etoh etoh
rename new_smk smk?
Michael
On Sep 27, 2009, at 3:29 PM, Martin Weiss wrote:
>
> <>
>
> -encode- comes to mind...
>
>
>
> **************
> clear*
>
> input str1 alc_now
> y
> y
> y
> y
> y
> y
> n
> y
> end
>
> compress
> list, noobs
>
> encode alc_now, gen(etoh_now)
> **************
>
>
> HTH
> Martin
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Michael
> McCulloch
> Sent: Montag, 28. September 2009 00:25
> To: Statalist
> Subject: st: efficiently creating 1/0 variables from existing string
> y/n
> variables
>
> Hello,
> I have a long list of string variables which contain only "y", "n", or
> are missing.
> I'm converting them to new numeric variables with values 1 if the old
> variable is "y", and 0 if "n".
> For example:
> gen etoh_now=alc_now=="y"
>
> This gives, correctly:
> .. list alc_now etoh_now, clean
> alc_now etoh_now
> 1. y 1
> 2. y 1
> 3. y 1
> 4. y 1
> 5. y 1
> 6. y 1
> 7. n 0
> 8. y 1
>
> Is there a more efficient way to do this, where I can change "y" to 1
> and "n" to 0 without creating a new variable and manually dropping the
> old variable?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Michael McCulloch, LAc MPH PhD
> Pine Street Foundation
> 124 Pine Street
> San Anselmo, CA 94960-2674
> tel: 415-407-1357
> fax: 206-338-2391
> [email protected]
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *
> * For searches and help try:
> * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>
>
> *
> * For searches and help try:
> * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
Michael McCulloch, LAc MPH PhD
Pine Street Foundation
124 Pine Street
San Anselmo, CA 94960-2674
tel: 415-407-1357
fax: 206-338-2391
[email protected]
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
