Re: st: Re: destringing values led to Stata recoding them as missing

[Suzy <scott_788@wowway.com>]

Dear Daniel,
I used the destring option because I wasn't able to analyze the data as 
is - I would get error messages regarding not being able to analyze 
string. These values are codes that represent disorders, so you are 
correct. But since I am a fairly new user of Stata, I just figured that 
it couldn't read those values because of the dashes or the alpha-numeric 
since the datapoints that were only numbers were read and analyzed with 
no problem.

Daniel Egan wrote:


> Hi Suzy,
>
> Just to be clear, are you sure you want to create numeric values? The usual
> reason for destringing a variable is that it IS a numeric variable that has
> typos which cause it to be regarded as text. Is this is a continuous
> variable that does have a numeric (linear etc) relationship. If each of
> these string variables represent different disorders, you should have a good
> methodological reason for making them numeric. Otherwise, keep them in an
> "apples and oranges" arrangement of strings, i.e. diabetes (1003) is not
> "one more than" malaria (1002)...
>
> In essence, if you want to use each of these variables as categoricals, they
> are fine as is - as strings. You will be able to analyze them as strings, in
> a categorical or dummy variable sense.
>
>
> I may be way off here, but just wanted to make sure you knew you could
> analyze them as is.....
>
> Apologies if I am being obvious.
>
> Dan
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Suzy" <scott_788@wowway.com>
> To: <statalist@hsphsun2.harvard.edu>
> Sent: Friday, August 27, 2004 5:44 PM
> Subject: st: destringing values led to Stata recoding them as missing
>
>
> | Dear Statalisters;
> |
> | I have seven variables of over 300,000 observations each. Within each
> | variable, I have over 2000 different  values.  These datapoints
> | represent  specific codes - for example : (72200  = intervertebral disc
> | disorder). Within each of these  seven variables, there are datapoints
> | (values) with dashes or alphabets (Ie: 4109-  or V2389).  The majority
> | of the values though, are purely numeric (23405). I used the destring
> | option so that I could analyze the data and Stata treated all those
> | datapoints that included dashes and alphabets as missing. Now there is a
> | period . where there used to be a value.  I have two questions:
> |
> | 1. Will the restring option restore the datapoints?
> |
> | 2. How can I successfully "destring" these values so that I can include
> | them in my analysis?
> |
> | Any  help and/or specific code would be very helpful as I am only
> | marginally competent with Stata basics.
> |
> | Thank you!
> | Suzy
> |
> |
> | *
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> | *   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
> |
> *
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>
>
>  

*
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