st: Re: statalist-digest V4 #976

[baum <baum@bc.edu>]

--On Wednesday, August 14, 2002 2:33 -0400 Myima wrote:

> I need to create a unique id variable by combining three
> different numeric variables viz. "district", "house" and
> "person". "District" has been entered as a four digit
> number code (1000 to 1500). Each "District" has "house"s
> numbered 1 to 150 (no zero in front) and each "house" has
> "person" with numbers ranging from 1 to 12 (again no zero
> in front). I need the uniqe id variable to merge this
> dataset with another data file having other information
> about these particular people.
>
> As members may have figured out by now...I am new not only
> to this list but to Stata too. I have tried looking for
> help elsewhere...but the lack of Zeros in "house" and
> "person" is giving me problems. Please help...
>
> warm regards
>
> Nyima
In this case you can get away with integer arithmetic, since the resulting 
code is within the range of a long:

g long code=district*100000+house*100+person


     district  house  per~n          code
 1.      1000   10   1     100001001
 2.      1001  150   2     100115002
 3.      1002    2   6     100200206
 4.      1003   22  12     100302212

But if the codes are longer than 8 digits, you will have to resort to 
strings. For your case it seems to work fine.

Kit

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