Re: st: Transformations

[Richard Williams <Richard.A.Williams.5@nd.edu>]

At 11:43 AM 2/11/2004 +1100, Jason Payne wrote:
> Dear STATAlistservers
>
> I am trying to transform data in variables.  What is the equivalent STATA 
> syntax for this SPSS command
>
> if (var1=2) var2=1.
Stata does things kind of backwards from SPSS:

gen var2 = 1 if var1==2

Note the ==

If var2 already exists, instead say

replace var2 = 1 if var1==2

But, what do you want when var1 does not equal 2?  Missing?  A 0-1 
dichotomy? There may be some other ways to approach this, depending on what 
your ultimate goal is.


> This syntax only works if you want to create a new variable, however in 
> some cases I might with to modify an existing variable for one case 
> only.  This is particularly useful in cleaning string variables where 
> there are spelling mistakes.  In SPSS I would just type:
>
> if (caseid=1) stringvar='SPSS'.
> if (caseid=2) stringvar='STATA'.
replace stringvar="SPSS" in 1
replace stringvar="STATA" in 2

I'm assuming these are the first and second cases in your data.  If not 
necessarily so, and caseid is a variable in your data set, then try

replace stringvar="SPSS" if caseid==1
replace stringvar="STATA" if caseid==2

Or, just go in to the data editor and do it!  Lot easier sometimes really.

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Richard Williams, Notre Dame Dept of Sociology
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