So the beginning and end of the problem
is the need for a unique identifier.
In this situation, I would try
egen id = group(cl0?), label
as a somewhat lazier way to climb the mountain.
It would seem that you need to do something
similar in the other dataset.
If your ids are simple integers, the numeric
format before and the string format after
don't sound like an issue. If your ids are not
simple integers, you are probably going to
get major problems by forcing them to be integers
when they are really numbers with fractional parts.
Specifically, I don't like the look of
tostring ... , force
As -tostring-'s putative parent (parthenogenesis
is fun), I underline that -force- is an explicit
signal that you know you could lose information
when you do this. Any use of -force- prior to
a -merge- is inviting trouble, as for a -merge-
you really do want your identifiers to be correct and not
mangled.
Yet further: the -tostring- / -real()- / -tostring-
sequence looks fairly weird, especially as -real()-
itself can happily play havoc with stuff it
doesn't understand.
Nick
[email protected]
[email protected]
>
> thank you for your prompt reply. yes, it appears i neglected
> to put the
> delimiter ... it works fine now but I still have my original
> problem of forcing
> the display format to be %2.0f.
>
> here is the context: I am working with a household survery on
> child labor force.
> I am trying to generate a unique id by concatenating a few
> string variables. the
> reason I am creating the unique id is so that i can merge the
> data set with
> anoterh survey on labor force from the same country. The
> variables (cl01 thru
> cl08) originally came in numeric format (with a display
> format of %2.0f). What I
> am trying to do is convert these variables to string
> variables while keeping the
> display format.
>
> unfortunately, the display format that I get when i convert
> to string is %9.s
>
> this is what my do file looks like:
>
> tostring cl01-cl08, replace force;
> gen id1=real(cl01); format id1 %02.0f;
> gen id2=real(cl02); format id2 %02.0f;
> gen id3=real(cl03); format id3 %02.0f;
> gen id4=real(cl04); format id4 %02.0f;
> gen id5=real(cl05); format id5 %02.0f;
> gen id6=real(cl06); format id6 %03.0f;
> gen id7=real(cl07); format id7 %02.0f;
> gen id8=real(cl08); format id8 %02.0f;
> tostring id1-id8, replace usedisplayformat;
> egen hhid=concat(id1 id2 id3 id4 id5 id6 id7 id8);
>
> any advice is appreciated
>
> M
> Mirafe Gebriel Marcos
>
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