* if your variables are strvar1 & strvar2
gen str6 newvar = ""
qui des
local N = r(N)
forval i = 1/`N' {
local t1 = strvar1[`i']
local t2 = strvar2[`i']
local leng2 = length("`t2'")
local dum2 = ""
if `leng2' == 1 {
local dum2 = "00"
}
else if `leng2' == 2 {
local dum2 = "0"
}
local var = "`t1'`dum2'`t2'"
replace newvar = "`var'" in `i'
}
list
| strvar1 strvar2 newvar |
|----------------------------|
1. | B 1 B001 |
2. | B 120 B120 |
3. | CCH 7 CCH007 |
4. | CCH 23 CCH023 |
5. | CCH 213 CCH213 |
|----------------------------|
6. | UW 23 UW023 |
7. | UW 232 UW232 |
Richard
On 11/24/05, Ian Watson <[email protected]> wrote:
> Clare
>
> I've reproduced your problem and compared it with yesterday's solution
> and can only come up with one suggestion.
>
> When you infile the string and then split it, using the substr function,
> the right hand component (which I called num in yesterday's post) has
> leading blanks on it. These are then replaced by leading 0s using the
> subinstr function.
>
> However, when you infile the string as two strings, Stata possibly
> strips the leading blanks from it. Even though it has the designation of
> a str3 type, it may not have the same "contents" as num did (which was
> also a str3 type) because that latter was created from substr. That
> is " 23" and "23" look the same on the screen, but they're not the same
> data.
>
> This is only a guess, and I can't find an easy way to test it. But it
> suggests you're better off reading your string in as a full string, then
> splitting it, rather than as two strings. At least that works (even if
> the reason is not altogether clear to me why).
>
> --
> Kind regards,
> Ian
>
> -------------------------------
> Ian Watson
> Senior Researcher
> acirrt, University of Sydney
> NSW, 2006, Australia
>
> phone: 02 9351 5622
> email:[email protected]
> www.acirrt.com
> -------------------------------
>
>
>
>
> Clare L Maxwell wrote:
> > Hello again to the Statlist writers.
> >
> > This is a reprise of a problem I asked about yesterday, involving a
> > 6-place string subject identifier that is read in from an ASCII file. In
> > the ASCII file, this is how the data look:
> >
> > B 1
> > B 120
> > CCH 7
> > CCH 23
> > CCH213
> > UW 23
> > UW 232
> >
> > I want to turn them into a variable that looks like this:
> >
> > B001
> > B120
> > CCH007
> > CCH023
> > CCH213
> > UW023
> > UW232
> >
> > I had two very helpful recommendations on how to accomplish this.
> > However, the results were not as hoped.
> >
> > I read the data into Stata as two str3 variables:
> >
> > infile dictionary using "/Projects/Christina/HNS/Stata/data/cm1.raw" {
> > str3 site %3s
> > str3 siteid %3s
> > ...... many more vars
> > }
> >
> > I was surprised when they looked like this in Stata:
> >
> > site siteid
> > B 1
> > B 120
> > CCH 7
> > CCH 23
> > CCH 213
> > UW 23
> > UW 232
> >
> > In other words, now they both appeared as right justified once they had
> > been read in (siteid was that way before in the ASCII file).
> >
> > This saved me the trouble of manipulating site. However, when I tried
> > to left pad siteid with zeros, as suggested by Ian Watson and Nick Cox:
> >
> > replace siteid = subinstr(siteid," ","0",.)
> >
> > I got the message that zero replacements have been made. When I
> > concatenated the site and siteid to get my final ID variable, I got the
> > following:
> >
> > B1
> > B120
> > CCH7
> > CCH23
> > CCH213
> > UW23
> > UW232
> >
> > This is similar to problems I was having before my original letter.
> > There must be something I do not understand how blanks are treated in
> > string variables created this way. In the ASCII file, these variables
> > are not enclosed in quotation marks to signify that they are string
> > variables. I just say string and how long when they are read in. I
> > later merge three files by these IDs plus dates, and in order to do
> > that, I have to compress the files. I thought compression might have
> > been the problem. Sadly, not compressing did not resolve this. I also
> > just updated Stata. No change. Can anyone shed more light?
> >
> > Thank you very much for your help.
> >
> > Yours truly,
> > Clare Maxwell
> > *
> > * For searches and help try:
> > * http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
> > * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> > * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
> >
> >
> >
> *
> * For searches and help try:
> * http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
> * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
>
*
* For searches and help try:
* http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
* http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
* http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
