Re: st: sort won't sort

[Tom Trikalinos <ttrikalin@mac.com>]

Year is a string variable with 5 characters. So you have leading spaces 
in some observations.
Try
. g year4 = trim(year)
. sort year4

or convert year to a numeric

. destring year , gen(yearNum)
. sort yearNum
tom

trim removes leading and trailing blank spaces in a string.


On Dec 9, 2004, at 12:54 AM, Michael McCulloch wrote:


> Hello,
> I am sorting a dataset on variable "year", (str5   %9s).
> When I list on year, some are out of order.
> I've tried re-sorting, or creating a new variable with the same text, 
> but no luck.
>
> . sort year
> . list id year  if exc==0
>      +-------------+
>      |  id    year |
>      |-------------|
>   9. |  43    1997 |
>  10. |  43    1997 |
>  79. | 237    2004 |
>  80. | 237    2004 |
>  81. |  35    1998 |
>  82. | 191    1998 |
>      |-------------|
>  83. |  22    2000 |
>  84. | 277    2004 |
>      +-------------+
>
> .
>
>
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