Re: st: RE: still having problems with converting string variables

[Suzy <scott_788@wowway.com>]

I need the frequency of some of the categories under the string 
variables. For example, for a numeric variable such as sex, I get the 
frequency easily....
. tab sex

       sex |      Freq.     Percent        Cum.
------------+-----------------------------------
         1 |    133,769       40.88       40.88
         2 |    193,485       59.12      100.00
------------+-----------------------------------
     Total |    327,254      100.00

For the string variables such as dxcode1, I cannot obtain the frequency 
for either code:

tab dxcode1 if dxcode1==4010-
invalid syntax
r(198);

. tab dxcode1 if dxcode1==40200
type mismatch
r(109);

Thus, I felt that I needed to destring the variable dxcode1.  But 
because some observations are coded with dashes, it seems that the only 
way to get it to work is to use the ignore and force option, but then 
I'd lose the dashed observations since  STATA would treat them as 
missing. So that has been my dilemma.

Suzy




Nick Cox wrote:


> -destring- is telling you what the problem is, 
> but you also know yourself what the problem is, 
> the "-" characters. 
>
> > From what you say, you cannot ignore these characters, 
> even though -destring- will do that with the -ignore()- 
> option, as then "4010" will be mixed up with "4010-". 
> It appears unclear why you want to -destring- 
> in this circumstance, as your variables are not 
> really numeric in content and you just run the 
> risk of losing information. 
> If, however, you need a numeric categorical variable 
> for some purpose, e.g. -anova-, then -encode- 
> not -destring- is the appropriate way to do it. 
> Nick 
> n.j.cox@durham.ac.uk 
> Suzy 
>  
>
> > I have a number of string variables in my dataset. Within 
> > these string 
> > variables are observations that are coded with either  numeric 
> > categorical values coded like this: (4010, 40120) or with 
> > dashes (4010-, 
> > 4012-) meaning that these four codes represent four different things. 
> > Each string variable has hundreds of different categories 
> > that are coded 
> > in this manner.  I'm trying to convert  the string variables 
> > to numeric 
> > and  also be able to retain analysing the observations that 
> > the contain 
> > dashes.
> >
> > I've tried various destringing options such as these listed 
> > below with 
> > the following STATA response.:
> >
> > .destring dxcode1, generate(dxcode1num)
> > dxcode1 contains non-numeric characters; no generate
> >
> > .destring dxcode1, replace
> > dxcode1 contains non-numeric characters; no replace
> >
> > I've e-mailed once before on this topic, so I apologize in 
> > advance for 
> > the redundant question, but I'm still having trouble and I'm not 
> > computer/STATA savvy. If anyone has some beginner 
> > user-friendly advice with explicit coding, it would be much appreciated.
> >    
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