st: Formatting a string variable (UK postcodes) to always be seven characters in length

[<catherine.tisch@ed.ac.uk>]

Good afternoon

I'm hoping someone can help me with a formatting issue with regard to UK
postcodes whereby I want to create a new postcode variable that is always
seven characters in length from a postcode variable that has between five
and eight characters (e.g. 7 numbers/letters with a space = 8).  I want to
ultimately join my cleaned postcode variable created in Stata to a postcode
shapefile in ArcGIS.  The postcode shapefile variable is always seven
characters in length, with various combinations of letters, numbers and
spaces, e.g.

LN  NLL
LLN NLL
LNN NLL
LLNNNLL
LLNLNLL
LNL NLL

Where L represents a letter and N a number.  I need to clean my original
postcode variable as there is little consistency (e.g. LN  NLL (two spaces)
vs LNNLL (no space) vs LN NLL (one space).  

Are there any suggestions on how I can create a new postcode variable in
Stata that is always seven characters in length bearing in mind that if a
space/s is required, there always needs to be three characters at the end
after the split?  I hope this all makes sense?!

I'm using Stata 12.1, any help much appreciated.

Many thanks
Catherine



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