This example raises a point that Jeroen
Weesie and I discussed when last talking
about -renvars- at dinner in the Maastricht
meeting: how far -renvars- has lost much of its original
rationale now that we have -foreach-? Indeed,
from one point of view it was half out-of-date
even as it was published.
Given this problem,
I would probably just fire up -foreach-
and crunch through the cases:
foreach v of var *y98 *y99 *y00 *y01 {
local when = substr("`v'",-2,2)
if "`when'" == "98" | "`when'" == "99" {
local new : subinstr local v "`when'" "19`when'"
}
else local new : subinstr local v "`when'" "20`when'"
rename `v' `new'
}
but that depends on knowing the very general tools
used above. Alternatively, revisiting the idiosyncratic
syntax of -renvars- I find one solution to be
renvars *y98, sub(y98 y1998)
renvars *y99, sub(y99 y1999)
renvars *y00, sub(y00 y2000)
renvars *y01, sub(y01 y2001)
which does look a bit more transparent from at
least one point of view.
Nick
[email protected]
Herve STOLOWY
> I found the renvars elements by downloading the STB-60.
>
> I can now formulate my question.
>
> I have 200 variables named in the following way:
>
> vary98
> vary99
> vary00
> vary01
>
> Could I rename all the variables with one instruction to obtain:
>
> vary1998
> vary1999
> vary2000
> vary2001.
>
> If not, should I distinguish the 1990s and the 2000s?
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
