A loose test of whether a string variable has only
numbers is that -real(strvar)- is not missing,
always remembering the possibility of missing
values.
real("")
and
real(".")
both return numeric missing.
In the -egenmore- package on SSC there is
a function -sieve()- which may help here.
sieve(strvar) , { keep(classes) | char(chars) | omit(chars) }
selects characters from strvar according to a specified criterion
and generates a new string variable containing only those characters.
This may be done in three ways. First, characters are classified using
the keywords alphabetic (any of a-z or A-Z), numeric (any of 0-9),
space or other. keep() specifies one or more of those classes:
keywords may be abbreviated by as little as one letter. Thus keep(a n)
selects alphabetic and numeric characters and omits spaces and other
characters. Note that keywords must be separated by spaces. Alternatively,
char() specifies each character to be selected or omit() specifies each
character to be omitted. Thus char(0123456789.) selects numeric
characters and the stop (presumably as decimal point); omit(" ") strips
spaces and omit(`"""') strips double quotes. (Stata 7 required.)
So you could look at a string variable like this.
egen N = sieve(strvar), keep(n)
capture assert N == strvar
if _rc {
// characters present
egen S = sieve(strvar), keep(a)
capture assert S == strvar
if _rc {
// must be a mixture
<code for this case>
}
else {
// must be all string
<code for this case>
}
else {
// must be all numeric
<code for this case>
}
drop N S
Nick
[email protected]
TEWODAJ MOGUES
> I looked through the string functions to try to find out
> which variable
> values of a string variable has letters plus numbers, only
> letters, and
> only numbers, but didn't come up with anything. E.g. suppose i wanted
> to create a categorical variable that takes on 1 when stringvar has
> only numbers, 2 if a mix of numbers and letter, and 3 if only letters:
>
> stringvar catvar
> 1 1
> 12 1
> id14 2
> run 3
> 5K 2
> SPRINT 3
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