Re: st: Re: destringing

[Suzy <scott_788@wowway.com>]

Thanks so much for everyone's help. I am enclosing the code and output I 
used that drove me to my problems.:

First, here is my reduced  infile and Stata's output:

. infix var11-2 var2 3 var3 4 var4 5-6 var5....  7  dxcode1 28-32 
dxcode2 33-37 dxcode3 38-42 dxcode4 43-47 dxcode5 48-52 dxcode6 53-57 
dxcode7 58-62 procode1 63-66 procode2 67-70 procode3 71-74 procode4  
using "C:\Stata8\Data\Dataset.TXT"

Here was Stata's output:

5990-' cannot be read as a number for dxcode6[1134]
'2874-' cannot be read as a number for dxcode7[1134]
2765-' cannot be read as a number for dxcode3[1156]
'E9331' cannot be read as a number for dxcode4[1156]
'V1005' cannot be read as a number for dxcode5[1156]

I contacted  Stata and they told me to modify the dxcode1-dxcode 7 and 
add  str5dxcode...which I did.

Here was the infile code for the modification: I also had to do the same 
for procode1-4 as these variables also had some aplha-numeric datapoints.

. infix var11-2 var2 3 var3 4 var4 5-6 var5....  7....  str5 dxcode1 
28-32 str5 dxcode2 33-37 str5 dxcode3 38-42 str5 dxcode4 43-47 str5 
dxcode5 48-52 str5 dxcode6 53-57 str5 dxcode7 58-62 str4 procode1 63-66 
str4 procode2 67-70 str4 procode3 71-74 procode4  using 
"C:\Stata8\Data\Dataset.TXT"

With this command  - my dataset came in with no problem.

But then , trying to analyze anything with  the dxcode or procode 
variable name returned this type of output:

. tab dxcode1 if dxcode1==V3000
V3000 not found
r(111);

I also tried this:

tab dxcode1 if dxcode1==v3000
v3000 not found
r(111);

And this....

tab dxcode1 if dxcode1==27500  (just numeric)
type mismatch
r(109);

That's why I then went ahead and used the destring (and force) 
option...which  made the dash and alpha-numerics disappear as missing 
datapoints - but did allow me to read the pure numeric numbers under 
these variable names.

Stata technicians did not tell me that when I added the str5 and str4 to 
those variables during infix - that my data would not be able to be 
read. So this is the full story.

As of now, I have reentered my data with the str5 and str4  and I am 
back at square one - which is how do I get Stata to read these 11 string 
variables (dxcodes1-7 and procode1-4)?

I hope this information is more specific. I needed to go back and replay 
my steps in order to remember what I had done, so I apologize for less 
detailed information in the previous e-mails.

I am fairly new to Stata and not very computer programming savvy - so 
simple is most appreciated. I will feel relieved rather than offended!!

Many thanks to those who have responded thus far!
Suzy




If I go to the data viewer there are over 100 consecutive V3000 
datapoints starting from obs1...so it is physically present.

To make things very simple, I only need to read a few of these string 
variables - not all of them. For example, I need to be able to read 
4019- Ultimately though, it would be nice to have all the datapoints 
read, so I don't miss anything by accident.









Christopher F Baum wrote:


> On Aug 28, 2004, at 2:33 AM, Suzy wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> encode is the answer to this problem. You cannot do anova, for 
> instance, on a string variable, but you can once you have encoded it, 
> and it will still display the 'words' (disorder codes) on the levels 
> of the variable--it is just that they are now value labels for the 
> variable rather than values.
>
> Kit
>
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