Part of the problem is that Stata chooses not to include leading blanks when creating string variables that are shorter than what
the format specifies. Thus if s is formatted str3 and 12 is a value of one observation of s, it is really "12" rather than " 12".
So, to get the appropriate number of spaces between two concatenated strings, you will need to pad out each string to its full
length with blanks. For your example:
. tostring hv001, gen(h1)
. tostring hv002, gen(h2)
. replace h1=" " + h1 if length(h1) == 1
. replace h2=" " + h2 if length(h2) == 1
. replace h2=" " + h2 if length(h2) == 2
Then concatenate:
. gen str12 hhid2 = h1 + h2
I can conceive of no way, though, to programmatically cope with the fact that the surveys are inconsistent with regard to leading
and trailing blanks. Unless you can come up with a rule that defines this practice, you are stuck!
Tom
Thomas J. Steichen
[email protected]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
> [email protected]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2005 11:49 AM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: RE: st: String problem.
>
>
> Hi,
> Indeed, it is the case and Uli's suggestion is not working.
> In fact, the problem is deeper than that.
> I have several Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) data
> sets. They come in different flavors (households, women,
> children, etc...) I need to merge households and women
> (individuals) files. I go on as indicated by the DHS team
> (see below and also a previous thread on sustr() I posted
> last week, to which Nick graciously responded).
>
> But unfortunatelly, for one country, there is no hhid in the
> household file. But there is a caseid in the women file for
> that country. I need thus to generate a hhid (based on
> cluster and household id) in order to be able to merge the
> household data with individual data (in which I can retrieve
> the hhid variable from the caseid one using substr()). The
> caseid in the individual files contains hhid information. The
> hhid is always 12 characters long, with sometimes leading and
> trainling blanks spaces (that worses the case).
>
> I just can't figure :
> - how the DHS team constructs the hhid variable (i.e. with
> leading and trailing blanks and sometimes blanks within)
> - how to retrieve it in stata.
>
> One solution of course is to build hhid in household and
> individual files using cluster and household ID variables (g
> hhid = hv001*100+hv002). But I am wondering if one could
> achieve creating the hhid variable exactely in the DHS
> tradition (ie with 12 characters long). Because, ultimately,
> I need to pool my data and a uniformity is desirable. Said
> differently, why is it so difficult to create a second hhid2
> (without using
> clonevars)
> that is exactly the same as hhid?
>
> I hope this is clear enough.
>
> Best regards.
> Amadou.
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