Re: st: Dividing a variable

[Mehmet Beceren <mbeceren@hbs.edu>]

Glenn,

I can suggest a mechanical way using Excel along with Stata... It may look 
laborious but it should not take long....

1. Convert (or copy) your data to Excel and Save it as Text file.
2. Open the text file in excel by using Delimited option, and choose " ; 
"   and "space" as delimiters
3. If you do it right,  you should have the individual names and the patent 
numbers separated in different columns
4. assign variable names as person1, person2...personN for each separated name

Now convert (or copy) your data back to Stata

You can use reshape (long) command to accumulate each person* in one column

OR

Without going back to Stata, copy and paste each person* and corresponding 
patent number into different file (or worksheets) and then append them one 
below the other one... this should not take long if you do not have too 
many names corresponding to the same patent...
you can convert the appended data ( 2 columns: Name  --   Patent No ) back 
to Stata, and sort it however you like...

hope this was helpful

--Mehmet






At 02:58 PM 10/23/2002, you wrote:

> Hoping someone can help me with a problem involving dividing up a
> variable. My data consists of patent numbers and inventors and looks
> like this:
>
> nmi
> wku
> Schmitt, Ty; Gandre, Jerry
> 5586003
> Sato, N. Albert; Baker, David C.; Waldron, Christie J.  5586324
> Swamy, N. Deepak
> 5587885
>
> I would like it to look like this:
>
> nmi
> wku
> Schmitt, Ty
> 5586003
> Gandre, Jerry
> 5586003
> Sato, N. Albert
> 5586324
> Baker, David C.
> 5586324
> Waldron, Christie J.
> 5586324
> Swamy, N. Deepak
> 5587885
>
> That is, I want to create a record containing each inventor and his or
> her associated patent number.  If Ty Schmitt had five patents, he should
> show up in five records.  The number of inventors per patent varies from
> one to many.
>
> I've looked for egen functions (and their extensions) and done some
> experimenting, but am floundering.  Any help would be very appreciated!
>
> Glenn H.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Glenn Hoetker
> Assistant Professor of Strategy
> Department of Business Administration
> University of Michigan at Urbana-Champaign
> 217-355-4891
> ghoetker@uiuc.edu
>
> *
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*
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