Re: st: Renaming all value labels in a dataset

[Maarten Buis <maartenlbuis@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 12:21 PM, Mark McCann wrote:
>                 I'm having some problems with Stata SE 12.1 (and Stat-Transfer 10) in terms of merging files. I have several files that have been StatTransferred into Stata files, and the variables labels are auto-labelled LABA, LABB, LABC etc.
>
> A problem occurs when these files are merged together, as LABA in file1.dta and file2.dta refer to different values.
>
> Is there any way to rename all the value labels in a dataset with a prefix?

*--------------------- begin example ----------------------
sysuse nlsw88, clear

// see current label names
desc

// get all variables with value labels
ds, has(vallabel)
local vars `r(varlist)'

foreach var of local vars {
	// get the name of the value label for variable `var'
	local labname : value label `var'
	
	// create a copy with name prefix + oldname
	label copy `labname' foo_`labname', replace
	
	// assign that copy to variable `var'
	label value `var' foo_`labname'
}

// see the new label names
desc
*---------------------- end example -----------------------
(For more on examples I sent to the Statalist see:
 http://www.maartenbuis.nl/example_faq )

Hope this helps,
Maarten

---------------------------------
Maarten L. Buis
WZB
Reichpietschufer 50
10785 Berlin
Germany

http://www.maartenbuis.nl
---------------------------------
*
*   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/