Re: st: Re: format

[Chiara Mussida <cmussida@gmail.com>]

encode works. The only constraint is that it does not encode string
variables that takes more than 65,536 unique values.
Thanks

On 29/07/2012, Joseph Coveney <jcoveney@bigplanet.com> wrote:
> Chiara Mussida wrote:
>
> i have a string variable of 18 lenght. This is my id and i need it
> numerical. I proceeded with destring and i got a numerical variable in
> double format. I tried to get it in the format %18.0f, but i realised
> that stata does not maintain the original number. It approx each
> variable and in this way i cannot get a unique id Per individual. Do
> you know whether it is a problem of wrong format?
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> It is not a problem of the wrong format.  At the command line type:
>
>     help data_types
>
> and examine the precision of Stata's numerical data types.
>
> I'm curious as to why you believe that you must store eighteen-character IDs
> as
> numbers.  If you need to obtain a numerical ID for use of one of Stata's
> -xt-
> commands, then you can use -encode-.
>
> Joseph Coveney
>
>
> *
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>


-- 
Chiara Mussida
PhD candidate
Doctoral school of Economic Policy
Catholic University, Piacenza (Italy)
*
*   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/